"Jewel continues to polish sparkling music career"
BY DAVID YONKE
Jewel Kilcher doesn't want to be put on a pedestal.
"People look at me in magazines and feel I'm a phenomenon, as if what
I've accomplished is beyond their ability," she told one interviewer
recently. "I tell them to knock it off. If you respect what I've done,
then go do something yourself."
What Jewel has done is blaze her own trail to stardom, starting at her
family's 800-acre homestead near Homer, Alaska, and leading to the
national spotlight as a concert headliner and multi-platinum recording
artist.
The 23-year-old singer-songwriter, who performs a sold-out concert
Saturday night at the Toledo Zoo Ampitheatre, has connected with
millions of fans who appreciate the emotional honesty and intensity of
her music.
She was one of the top names on the highly successful Lilith Fair tour,
the summer festival featuring an all-female lineup, she appeared on the
cover of Rolling Stone in May, and has been featured on all the
prestigious network shows, from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The
Rosie O'Donnell Show to Saturday Night Live and Good Morning America.
Jewel's latest album, "Pieces Of You," has sold more than 5 million
copies and spent more than 16 weeks in the Top 10 of Billboard
magazine's album chart.
It wasn't a quick ride to the top, however.
"Pieces Of You" was released on Feb. 28, 1995, but didn't crack the
Billboard album chart until April, 1996- 64 weeks later. Within a month
after that, however, the CD had sold a million copies.
Jewel's breakthough song was the plaintive "Who Will Save Your Soul,"
which she said was inspired by an episode of people-watching.
"One of my favorite things to do is sit and watch people walking by. I
remember the details of what people look like- their expressions, their
posture, their words. I make up their lives to be tragic or boring or
brilliant or normal."
Jewel developed her vivid imagination while growing up in the family's
Alaskan homestead. Not only was there no television, but there was no
shower and the only bathroom was an outhouse.
Her parents were musicians, and Jewel begain joining them onstage when
she was 6. Her yodeling routine was a real crowd pleaser. After her
parents got a divorce some years later, Jewel traveled with her father
for the next seven years, performing in bars and nightclubs.
"After my parents got divorced, I started writing poetry a lot because
I didn't always know how to express myself," Jewel said. "That, to me,
is the real beauty of writing. It makes you more intimate with
yourself."
She won a partial vocal scholarship to the Interlochen Fine Arts
Academy in Michigan, where she spent her junior and senior years of high
school.
"My two years there were a turning point. I saw a bigger world," she
said. "I immersed myself in everything- drama, dance, sculpture, music."
Jewel moved to San Diego to be with her mother after graduation, but
felt restless.
"I had no desire to go to college but also felt to peace in travelling
or just bumming around," she said. "I got a number of dead-end jobs. Got
fired a couple of times. I was frightened and depressed. The idea of
spending my life in a 9-to-5 job made me feel trapped and hopeless."
She said she lived in her van for a while, existing on a diet of
carrots and peanut butter.
In between surfing and poetry-writing, she began playing guitar and
singing in San Diego coffee shops.
She got a job performing weekly at the Innerchange Coffeehouse, and the
audiences steadily grew.
With every show a sell-out, record executives began to take notice.
Several major labels courted her until she decided to sign with
Atlantic.
Jewel's latest release is the single, "V-12 Cadillac," featured in a
collection called "Music for Our Mother Ocean, Vol. II." Proceeds from
the album sales will go to the Surfrider foundation, a nonprofit
organization that works to protect the oceans.
"When I was living in my car, I prayed every night that I'd get to live
my dream, and that by me living my dream, people would remember theirs,"
Jewel said.
Jewel performs at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Toledo Zoo Ampitheare. The
concert is sold out.