Jewel Kilcher (born May 23, 1974 in Payson, Utah, United States) is a singer, songwriter, actress, and poet, generally known just by her first name, Jewel. She has received four Grammy Award nominations.
Jewel is the daughter of Nedra Carroll, an artist and personal manager, and Atz Kilcher, an elementary school music teacher, folk singer and social worker. Her mother of Irish descent and her father is of Swiss-German origin. She is the cousin of actress Q'Orianka Kilcher. She spent most of her young life in Homer, Alaska, United States, living with her father. The home she grew up in did not have indoor plumbing; it had a simple outhouse instead. She and her father sometimes earned a living by singing in bars and taverns. It was from these experiences she learned to yodel, a quality demonstrated in many of her songs. Her father was a Mormon, but they stopped attending the church shortly before she turned eight. Yule Kilcher, her grandfather, was a state senator involved in drafting Alaska's constitution for its admission into a state from a territory in 1959.
During high school, Jewel was known to spell her name "Jule" or "Juel," but she attributes this to simply playing with her name.
Jewel learned to play the guitar while at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, Michigan, United States where she majored in operatic voice. She started writing songs at the age of seventeen.
For a time, she was poverty-stricken and lived in her van while traveling about the country doing street performances and small gigs. She gained some recognition by singing at the Innerchange Coffeehouse and Java Joe's in San Diego, California, United States. Her friend Steve Poltz's band, The Rugburns, played at the same venues. Jewel later collaborated with Poltz on some of her songs, including "You Were Meant For Me" (He also appeared in the second, best-known, video for this song). The Rugburns opened for Jewel on her Tiny Lights tour in 1997. Poltz appeared in Jewel's band on the Spirit World Tour 1999 playing guitar.
In 1993, Michael Balzary (better known by the stage name – Flea) of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers met Jewel after he saw her perform at a local cafe. He went back to her van where she was living, where she sang a few of her songs to him. He described her singing voice as being "beautiful" and "breathtaking".
Jewel was discovered by Inga Vainshtein in August 1993, when a musician from a local San Diego band, Rust, whom Vainshtein was managing at the time, called to tell her about a girl surfer who sang at a local coffee shop on Thursdays. Vainshtein drove to Innerchange coffee shop with a rep from Atlantic Records, and after the show they called Danny Goldberg, the head of Atlantic Records west coast operations, and asked him to pay for Jewel's demo. Vainshtein eventually became Jewel's manager, and was instrumental in creating a major bidding war, which led to Jewel's deal with Atlantic Records. She cut her debut album, Pieces of You, when she was nineteen and it was released in 1995. Jewel recorded "Pieces of You" in a studio on Neil Young's ranch, and was backed by his band, The Stray Gators, who played on Neil Young's "Harvest" and "Harvest Moon" albums. Part of the album was cut live at the Innerchange Coffeehouse in San Diego where she had risen to local fame. The album stayed on the Billboard 200 for an impressive two years, reaching number four at its peak. The album spawned the Top 10 hits "You Were Meant for Me", "Who Will Save Your Soul" and "Foolish Games". The album was a huge success and eventually sold over 12 million copies in the United States. alone, more than all of her subsequent albums put together.
Due to her successes, she was chosen to sing the American national anthem at the opening of the Super Bowl in January 1998 in San Diego. She was introduced as "San Diego's own Jewel!" However, she was criticized for lip-syncing the anthem to a pre-recording. This was especially noticeable due to her missing her cue and not mouthing the first words.
In November 1998, Jewel released her second album, Spirit. The album peaked at #3 on the Billboard 200 and sold over 4 million copies in the United States. The songs "Hands" and "Down So Long" hit the Top 10. Other singles followed, a new version of "Jupiter (Swallow The Moon)", "What's Simple Is True", the theme song to her upcoming movie, and the charity single "Life Uncommon".
A year later, In November 1999, Jewel released Joy: A Holiday Collection. The album sold over a million copies and peaked at #32 on the Billboard 200. She released a cover of "Joy to the World" from the album.
In November 2001, the album This Way was released. The album peaked at #9 on the Billboard 200 and sold over 1 million copies in the United States, standing as her most critically acclaimed album to date. Jewel hit the Top 10 with the song "Standing Still" and the Top 40 with the song "Break Me". Other singles released were "This Way" and "Serve The Ego",
