This Jewel Shines Like a Gem

Singer Jewel opens up about her past and her new album.

by Mary Welch

September 19, 2008

S he was Alaskan cool before anyone else.

Or, maybe just cool.
   
Jewel is one of those rare artists who talks about art and integrity and seems to actually live out her words.

If she were writing and recording songs in the 1960s, she would have been called a folk singer, much like her idols Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Emmylou Harris and others. She has the same personalized style of writing and performing as her idols, but when, at age 19 in 1995, she released Pieces of You, a sparse but beautifully written and simply sung album, she was called a pop star. But it didn't really fit. She didn't fully embrace the pop lifestyle of celebrity boyfriends, publicity-seeking partying or self-destructive behavior. The album went platinum 12 times, and Jewel kept writing and sticking true to her craft. To date, she has released seven albums and sold almost 20 million copies.

Earlier this year she released her first country album, Perfectly Clear, on The Valory Music Co. label. It is clear that Jewel still has something to say and will do it her way. And, she will make it perfectly clear.
    
"I always write songs about my life," she says in an interview with Atlanta Woman . "I write what is important to me and what is true in my life and in the lives of those around me. I don't think music should be put in boxes - pop, country, rock 'n' roll. Those labels don't have anything to do with relating to the song. I think it's the record labels and the radio stations that have to put people and music in boxes."

 Still, her new CD is country-tinged and was released to country stations - quite successfully. "If you look at my music from the very beginning, it could easily have been played on country stations. But my label at that time didn't have any relationships with country radio. I didn't just wake up and say I'm going country. I was raised in Alaska and now live on a ranch in Texas. This is my life story."

Jewel's life story is tailor-made for songwriters. Born in 1974, she grew up in Homer, Alaska, living with her father and two brothers in a converted saddle barn without indoor plumbing. "We had a coal stove for heat. We made our own grain for bread, and we were very self-reliant. We ate what we could kill, catch or can. We rode horses. It was a great way to be raised."

Her roots go deep in Alaska. Her grandfather, Yule Kilcher, left pre-war Germany for the promise of 600 acres of free homestead land in Alaska. He hiked across the Alaskan glaciers by foot with a ladder on his back to he could cross crevasses in the ice. He wrote to his friends about his new life in Alaska and asked them to join him. A woman named Ruth, an aspiring opera singer, got on a ship to marry a man she hardly knew because she wanted her children to be free. Yule became a state senator and in 1959 was of the senators involved in drafting Alaska's constitution for its admission into a state from a territory. Ruth and Yule had eight children, including Jewel's father, Atz Kilcher.
    
"It's a wonderful legacy, and I inherited a love of music, words and performing from my grandmother and my father. My grandmother lived long enough to see me succeed, and I think she was very proud that I was a singer," she says. Jewel and her father supplemented their income by playing in various club and events around Alaska.

Eventually Jewel found her way into the Lower 48 and she "drifted" into playing clubs and taking odd jobs. One would change her life.
     
She was working in a computer warehouse and, "I got fired because I wouldn't have sex with my boss," she says. "He wouldn't give me my paycheck. I didn't have money for the first and last month's payment on an apartment, so I was living out of my car. I got really sick with kidney problems, and I had no insurance. I had a really tough time for about a year. I realized that nobody owes me anything except myself. I had to take responsibility for myself and live the kind of life I wanted to have."

It was that realization that helped Jewel refocus on her music. She signed with Atlantic Records and started releasing albums. She doesn't like to dwell on whether the business is harder for a woman than a man. "I never was one who worried about things what I was going to have to overcome," she says. "Maybe growing up in Alaska made me feel equal to anyone and able to take any challenge. There certainly are fewer women in the business. Radio stations won't play two women back to back but will with male artists. I'm not bitter. I think it's a matter of developing your talent and having have the ability to follow through." Her final album on the Atlantic label was in 2006, after which she switched to a country format with Valory.

"I believe in music," she says. "It's my life. At the end of the day celebrity and all the media attention isn't it. It's the music. I want to write about the music that helped me as a child understand a breakup or love. I write so that others can get those emotions and feelings as well. I want to be honest. Loretta Lynn, for instance, is shockingly honest."
    
She also doesn't mind if a lyric or two can be inspirational. For instance, in her latest hit, Stronger Woman, she writes about wanting to be her own best friend. There is a line that says, "I'm going to be the kind of woman I'd want my daughter to be."

"That line comes from two different places. One was when I was homeless, and I thought about that. Another comes from a friend who was in a bad relationship. It seems that it is easier for women to rise up when they are protecting children than just themselves."

Children are definitely on her mind. She married her beau of 10 years, rodeo star Ty Murray, this summer. "We wanted to elope and have a private wedding," she says. "We didn't mind sharing our pictures, but it was nice to have something so special just for ourselves."

There's not much time for a honeymoon. She's on the road 345 days this year promoting her album. Then she's going to slow down for a little bit, she says.
    
"Music is so personal, and it reflects the life of the person writing it," she says. "But so much of it is market-driven. You can't tell someone not to feel or write about his or her experiences-even if you don't like the lyrics. You can't dictate what is responsible. And sometimes it's hard to compete with what kids today think is cool. All you can do is pay more attention to your art than the trappings of fame. Be honest."
     
Spoken like someone who is cool.