From: owner-jewel-digest@smoe.org (jewel-digest) To: jewel-digest@smoe.org Subject: jewel-digest V3 #607 Reply-To: jewel@smoe.org Sender: owner-jewel-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-jewel-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk jewel-digest Sunday, November 15 1998 Volume 03 : Number 607 * If you ever wish to unsubscribe, send an email to * jewel-digest-request@smoe.org with ONLY the word * unsubscribe in the body of the email * . * For the latest information on Jewel tour dates, go to: * http://jewel.zoonation.com and click on "TOUR" * OR * go to the OFFICIAL Jewel home page at http://www.jeweljk.com * and go to the "What, When, Where" section * . * PLEASE :) when you reply to this digest to send a post TO the list, * change the subject to reflect what your post is about. A subject * of Re: jewel-digest V3 #xxx or the like gives readers no clue * as to what your message is about. Today's Subjects: ----------------- ATTENTION NYC AREA EDAs [PENNY16161@aol.com] A message to the EDAs from Jewel's Aunt :-) [Mike Connell ] [none] ["Jennifer L. Bergen" ] Jewel in Alaska People Magazine ["Scott Evans" Subject: A message to the EDAs from Jewel's Aunt :-) Hi folks :-) I was asked to forward this message from Jewel's Aunt Stellavera to the list. Mike :-) - - - - - - Hi Everyone, You can support worthy causes when buying Jewel's "Spirit" CD from Kilcheralaskastore.com (100% of the profits go to worthy causes). We have the CD's ready to ship out, so order now! Not only do you get her long-awaited CD, but some of your money goes to support socially responsible organizations who focus on creating a better world. Folks, when you're online at our webstore, you can also get other cool stuff from Jewel and the Kilcher family. Check out the latest trivia too! For instance, Jewel's grandfather Yule, 85 years old, a legend in Alaska, just got out of intensive care and is moving back to his homestead in Homer. His undying spirit kept him alive. You can hear his same desire to live life to its fullest in Jewel's songs. The Kilcher Alaska Store is at: http://www.kilcheralaskastore.com We're offering "Spirit only $13.99 and we guarantee 3-4 day delivery in the continental US. Support the earth and the good things that help bring about peace in our world. Stellavera Kilcher ------------------------------ Date: 14 Nov 98 21:29:25 +0100 From: "Chris Groves" Subject: The Times interview. As Katherine said yesterday, Jewel was interviewed in today's Times here in the UK. The interview was part of a full colour cover feature in the Metro supplement, and what a gorgeous cover it is :-) The article is 3 pages long and includes about half a dozen colour and black and white pictures. The text, which can also be found at www.the-times.co.uk is as follows. - --------------------------------------------------------- November 14 1998 METRO So you haven't heard of her? You soon will. Raised in the Alaskan backwoods, Jewel has sold seven million albums in America, and she's still only 24. Is she just another dippy hippy chick or a new Joni Mitchell, asks Nigel Williamson The big interview - Jewel's purpose Jewel Kilcher, or Jewel as she prefers to be known, is mildly embarrassed that her first album has sold ten million copies worldwide. "I thought it was funny how seriously people took it," she says. "You should never take the work of an 18-year-old that seriously. You should think, 'Maybe she has talent and she might do well when she is older'. It's like student art. But critics started comparing me to all kinds of great writers and that was silly. I wanted to tell everybody to calm down." This month the Alaskan singer-songwriter, now 24, releases her second album, Spirit. And this time Jewel deserves to be taken very seriously indeed. The album is such a huge advance on her 1996 debut, Pieces of You, that it looks set to establish her as arguably the finest female singer-songwriter since Joni Mitchell. It should also lay the foundation for her to repeat her phenomenal American success in Britain; of ten million copies of Pieces of You sold worldwide (seven million in the US) only 100,000 units were shifted in the UK. Made in just five weeks and with the songs apparently selected from more than 200 in her portfolio, Spirit marks her full flowering as a writer of lyrical substance and melodic invention. There is a mature head on her young shoulders, as she dispenses insights into the human condition. Jewel has just flown into London from New York. She shows no sign of jet lag and looks glowing. The last person to tell her that, she says, was David Bailey, who got a little carried away during a photo session. "He was shouting 'Show me that Arctic, frozen, icy, glacial Alaskan soul!'," she recalls. There is a buzz about Jewel which suggests that her time has come. In addition to the new album, her first volume of poetry, A Night Without Armor, has just been published in America. Her first feature film, Ride with the Devil, set during the American Civil War, in which she plays a young widow, opens next year. She is also writing a book about her life, which she describes as "not an autobiography but a collection of stories, vignettes, poems and essays." Whether she can keep up the pace remains to be seen, but the new album exudes a built-to-last quality that suggests her talent will still be shining brightly long after the likes of Alanis Morissette and Fiona Apple have faded. Jewel also comes complete with one of those unlikely rags-to-riches biographies that sounds like the work of an over-imaginative publicist: born on a homestead in Homer, Alaska (pop. 4,000) without running water or electricity, parents divorced, lived in a camper van in California, played the coffee houses, signed a record deal, made one of the biggest albums of the Nineties and lived happily ever after. But this biog is true. So what does she feel she gained from such an unusual upbringing and how might she have turned out if she had been brought up in New York or L.A.? "It was a discipline; a strong work ethic, physical labour and lots of chores, so that gave me a certain strength," she says. "It meant the focus of my life was never glamour or fame, so now I am in the music business I don't feel overly caught up in it. I don't need it and if I did, that would scare me." Jewel's early existence was almost totally cut off from the usual preoccupations of modern living. There was no television, radio, movie-going or telephone. "I thought for a long time that it was a negative that I wasn't raised with a lot of outside influences," she says. "I'm beginning to realise that it kept me very creative. I was never taught to watch TV. Instead I would sit down and write something." But it was an upbringing which left Jewel feeling distinctly out of step with a world obsessed with instant gratification. "I used to look at magazines when I was a kid and feel nauseous. It was so far from my life and I didn't understand it. So I've always felt weird," she says. Then there was the trauma of her parents' divorce when she was eight. Her mother Nedra (who is now her manager) left, but Jewel stayed with her father. "It was hard and it doesn't matter which parent you lose - - as a child it is devastating. But my mum always had a great way of staying in touch even if we couldn't talk or see each other. She gave me my emotional and spiritual side." Before the family broke up, Nedra and Jewel's father Atz were a variety act in local hotels and bars. "They did sketches and songs and me and my brothers got up and did numbers. When they got divorced it was just me and my dad. He taught me professionalism and showmanship. He'd tell jokes and stories and sing cover songs. I sang harmony behind him on Heartbreak Hotel and Eagles numbers even though I had never heard the originals." According to the legend, Jewel was so unaware of popular culture that she didn't hear a Beatles record until she was 17. "Absolutely," she confirms. "I had a friend, Steve Poltz, who would take me to his house and say 'This is Let It Be'. He laid it all out for me because I wasn't raised listening to music. I still don't go to records for my relaxation. I tend to go to a book. When I listen to my own records I hear my literary influences rather than musical ones." Jewel met Poltz, a fellow singer-songwriter, when she moved to San Diego after leaving Michigan's Fine Arts Academy in 1992. She was 18 and at a low point in her life, working in dead-end jobs and lacking self-esteem and direction. She moved into a blue 1979 VW camper van to save rent and her mother, with whom she was by now reunited, occupied a similar van in the same parking lot. "I was aware that I wasn't doing anything worthwhile with my life. I wasn't happy and I didn't know what the point of living was. I felt so alone and isolated. I was struggling to eat and pay the rent and when I moved into the van I felt a tremendous relief. I no longer had to come up with $500 a month and I could start being creative." Jewel was also constantly sick with kidney problems and could not afford doctors. "I'm not feeling sorry for myself," she says. "But I realised the world was a harsh place. I'd grown up with all my friends on welfare and I didn't want to struggle all my life. I felt helpless and I wanted a purpose. But what do you do? Become an environmental lawyer? Join Greenpeace? Shave your head? March?" Instead, she decided to get serious about her writing and singing. "But that meant performing in a coffee shop, not getting a record deal. I never thought that much of myself," she says. Her self-esteem developed after she read a book called The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot. She goes into a long explanation of the book's theory that the brain is like a radio dish and every thought emits a vibration so that everything one is thinking is made manifest. She decided that she was compounding her problems by radiating negative energy. "I was cynical and bitter and I realised that it wasn't helping me. I decided to concentrate on what would make me feel good about waking up in the morning, to learn to reshape my thought processes and empower myself." The new positive thinking, combined with her voice and beguiling songs, soon built Jewel a reputation, and by 1994 Atlantic Records had been to San Diego to check her out. They signed her and anticipated that her debut album - recorded at Neil Young's Broken Arrow studio - might sell 30,000 copies. Expectations were not high because Jewel resisted all suggestions that the sound should be more commercially polished and insisted instead on a simple folk structure constructed around her voice and guitar. "I thought there was no way the record would be huge. I always thought I would have a small, cool following. Somehow it became popular. I was suddenly on magazine covers." She can only find faint praise for the album: "It was a good record for a teenager. It's very honest. It is all there - the awkwardness and everything. Nothing is censored. I'm proud of its honesty. I'd rather be awkward and honest than slick and not myself." Yet success was not instant. "In 1994 the climate was different," Jewel explains. "It was the height of grunge and cynicism and everything I was saying was trying to counter cynicism. It took the climate to change before the record could do well. I toured constantly which is the best thing you can do. Artists with any longevity, like Neil Young and the Stones, have achieved that through touring." By 1996 the album had sold a million and looked to have run its course. Jewel began recording a second album. Then You Were Meant for Me was released as a single. It was a huge hit and the new album was abandoned as Jewel went out touring again for another 18 months. "I look at that aborted record as a pencil sketch for an oil painting. I would have hated it to have come out because today it sounds dated. By the time I did this record, I was ready. I've had the advantage of four years since the last record so there is a lot of growth." Did she really have 200 songs to choose from? "It doesn't mean that they are all good," she laughs. "I'm writing less now, but better. I used to be drunk on writing, like that first phase of being in love when you want to do it all the time." The five weeks she took to record Spirit represent indecent haste by today's standards. "It was very focused with a specific theme. The songs are all about empowering yourself. Your hands are slaves to your mind. They build churches and they burn them. They hang people in Texas and then they go home and hold children. I wanted to talk to kids about how we can make a difference. The theme is intelligent optimism, if you like." She talks with a total lack of self-consciousness about her desire "to help the world" and recently set up a charity, Higher Ground for Humanity. Surely such simplicity invites cynicism? "Probably, but I'm not saying there are no problems. It's about the possibility of change. If our thoughts were manifested physically we would all have black eyes, scratches, teeth knocked out. We'd be mutilated because we are so hard on ourselves. People who are gay but are guilty about it hurt themselves enormously. "If you are a heroin addict and then you feel evil for doing it, you compound the mutilation," Jewel continues. "Learning to love yourself is very hard. I wish kids could see their own beauty. We need to learn to be gentle with ourselves. You need an essay to say all that but I had a three-minute pop song." The other theme is the liberation of the spirit of the album title. "The more we integrate our spiritual beings into our lives the more whole we become. I think it is our generation's task to balance the intellect and the heart." Jewel seems bookish and sexually aware in equal measure. "As a kid I was stuck on the idea that my worth was based on my ability to seduce the opposite sex. At 15 I was vamping it up. We are conditioned to believe that the pinnacle in life is romantic love. It was reading that changed me. I learnt my humanity from Anaïs Nin, Bukowski, Pablo Neruda, and I became more focused on my mind." Yet there have been several high-profile men in her life, including Poltz and Sean Penn. Currently single, she appears to have the happy knack of keeping them as friends long after the relationship has ended. "It seems very natural to me. I've never had relationships end badly. I'm developing all the time and people don't always grow together at the same rate. But my love never diminishes, just changes to the point where I say 'I don't think we should sleep together any more.' My admiration for that person remains intact." Has success made her happy? "I'm always striving but I am finding more comfort. That comes from my relationship with myself and not from my external world." Her ambition, Jewel says, is still to be creative in 20 years. "I'm looking forward to growing old. Staying pure is the hard part and I'm still learning what it takes to keep your creative spirit alive. Every record doesn't need to sell ten million. You have to be bold and prepared to fail." At the moment, the prospect of that seems remote. Spirit is released on eastwest on November 16. - -------------------------------------------------------------- Chris. Jewel, Pieces Of UK - http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~cmgroves/Jewel ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 23:19:12 -0500 From: "Jennifer L. Bergen" Subject: [none] To those of you who had read my post last week, about going to counselling for alcohol, well, I went today for the only session that I had to go, and I feel really good that I did it. That's about all that I feel, I don't know how much different I feel or anything. When I walked out of the building and got on the bus to go back to campus, I felt that this great weight had been lifted off of my chest. Another thing that I'm in a really good mood for is that most of the record stores near campus are having a midnight sale on Monday night. When I went into one of them to ask the clerk, and he told me that, all I said was, "Sweet." He laughed at me. So I'll be able to get Spirit on Monday night. I can't wait. I just thought that I'd write and update you all on how I'm going with quitting drinking. I think I can do it though, I used to be really heavy into the drug scene, but I made myself quit, cold turkey. But I don't want to bore you all, so you know, I'll write back later... Love and Peace forever, Jen AOL IM:Giggles123 ICQ#:21959536 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 20:32:53 PST From: "Scott Evans" Subject: Jewel in Alaska People Magazine After reading the post from Jewel's Aunt Stellavera (sp?), I went to the Kilcher Alaska Store at http://www.kilcheralaskastore.com .. After vrowsing around, I found that they were still selling the old issue of Alaska People Magazine with Jewel on the cover! You can buy the issue for $5.00! Scott ------------------------------ End of jewel-digest V3 #607 ***************************