Jewel Kilcher
Zak Williams
August 7, 2019
Jewel is a singer-songwriter, actress, author, mother and advocate. She went from a girl who grew up in Alaska with no running water, to a homeless teenager in San Diego, to an award winning, Multi-Platinum Recording Artist who released one of the best-selling debuts of all times. Through her career, which has spanned over 20 years, she has earned multiple Grammy Award nominations, an American Music Award and an MTV Video Music Award among many others and to date has sold well in excess of 30 million albums worldwide.
Recently founding her own label imprint “Words Matter Media,” Jewel has inked a distribution and marketing deal with RED MUSIC (SONY), and is busy writing songs for her next studio album set to begin recording this summer for release in 2019 coinciding with her Silver Anniversary – a celebration of 25 years as a hit-making recording artist that will be followed with a national tour.
Jewel credits her great mentors Bob Dylan, and Neil Young who took the time to groom and encourage her as a young artist. Jewel’s debut album Pieces of You was released in 1995, recorded in a studio on Neil Young’s ranch, and included Young’s backing band, The Stray Gators. The album stayed on the Billboard 200 chart for two years and spawned Top 10 hits including the certified platinum single “You Were Meant for Me,” “Who Will Save Your Soul”, and “Foolish Games”. Described by Rolling Stone as “a record that carved out a perfectly confessional, coffeehouse niche between the decline of grunge and the rise of the slinky pop princess,” The album also reached mainstream success selling over 12 million copies and becoming certified 12x platinum.
Jewel’s versatile music career has spanned seven studio albums ranging in genre from pop, folk and country and has had 23 hit singles. The progression and variety of Jewel’s albums is due largely in part to mentor’s Bob Dylan and Neil Young who impressed upon her with their advice to take risks and make music she is authentically interested in. Jewel’s second album Spirit showcased an entirely different feel than first album, Pieces of You. Rock-leaning, This Way, came next which then transitioned to the Dance-Pop that encompassed 0304. Next, Jewel explored country with beautiful lyrics and melody. She debuted #1 in the country charts with her first country effort. Always a story-teller, combining poetry and melody, Jewel’s body of works speak for themselves.
Her bold ability to not only span genre and medium, but have success in each of them are made possible by the consistent philosophic and poetic lyrical viewpoint which permeates everything she does.
She defines herself as someone whose purpose is to serve as an emotionally honest mirror for society. Never using art as propaganda to make herself or the world around her seem more or less perfect than it is. Authenticity is the hallmark of each piece of art she puts out. She credits this as the source of her longevity.
Jewel has appeared on the cover of numerous magazines including TIME and Rolling Stone, performed on Saturday Night Live, at the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, for The Pope and for The President Of The United States.
In addition to singing and songwriting Jewel is also a successful actress making her film debut in Ang Lee’s civil war drama “Ride with the Devil.” She then went on to star in the lead role of June Carter Cash in the Lifetime original movie “Ring of Fire,” nominated for four Emmy Awards. In early 2017, Jewel became a Producer and assumed the lead role of Shannon Hughes as an “intuitive contractor” on the hot franchise “The Fixer Upper Series” movies (based on the best-selling series of books of the same name) for Hallmark Movies and Mysteries. She is also an Executive Producer, and plays a significant role, in the new Documentary “Lost in America,” by Rotimi Rainwater on youth homelessness.
As an author, Jewel became a best-selling poet with her book of poems A Night Without Armor. Jewel released her memoirs, Never Broken: Songs Are Only Half the Story in 2015 and it became a New York Times Best seller, and penned 3 children’s books.
For philanthropy, Jewel founded her water Charity in 1997 and has brought clean water to 15 countries. She recently started the Never Broken Foundation and online program, and has partnered with the Inspiring Children Foundation to make mindfulness and emotional intelligence tools available to the masses for free. Jewel’s lifelong passion for her own personal growth and health is helping her to become the spokesperson of modern day wellness and mindfulness by sharing those same practices she used from the age of fourteen. Jewel’s “WHOLE HUMAN” philosophy is designed to help people gain tone and strength in all areas of their lives including emotional intelligence, physical and fiscal health, interpersonal relationships and nutrition and, most importantly, as friends, associates and contributors to society.
