Jewel

Jewel Kilcher, professionally known as Jewel, is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, actress and poet. She has received four Grammy Award nominations and has sold over 30 million albums worldwide. Collection includes: 'Pieces of You' (1995) Japan Edition; 'Spirit' (1998) Japan Edition; 'Joy: A Holiday Collection' (1999); 'This Way' (2001) Japan Edition; '0304' (2003) Japan Edition; 'Goodbye Alice In Wonderland' (2006) Japan Edition; 'Perfectly Clear' (2008); 'Lullaby' (2009); 'Sweet And Wild' (2010) 2CD Deluxe Edition; 'Picking Up the Pieces' (2015).

The multi-platinum success of Jewel's debut album Pieces of You came as a bit of a surprise to some observers, but it shouldn't have. Alone among all the female singer/songwriters of the post-alternative '90s, Jewel appealed to sensitive female teenagers and preteen girls. Her pretty melodies, gentle folk-rock, and sweetly naive lyrics are the sound of awkwardly creative adolescence, which made sense, since she was only a teenager at the time of her debut. That naïveté was the reason why Pieces of You was charming, even with a slapdash production that left in rough edges that should have been sanded.

"Picking Up the Pieces" is Jewel's 14-track LP through Sugar Hill Records. She self-produced the record - with her first producer, the late Ben Keith, always in mind - and hired a band comprised mostly of Neil Young collaborators to help her strip away the veneer she’d built up over two decades in the music business.

On her new album Freewheelin’ Woman, Jewel presents her boldest and most unbridled body of work to date, revealing entirely new dimensions of her breathtaking voice. In giving life to such a powerful selection of songs, the four-time Grammy Award-nominated artist immersed herself in a process she refers to as a spiritual rewilding—a reawakening of the raw creative energy that first set her on her path as an ever-evolving singer/songwriter.

A couple of years back, UK-based House and Soul DJ Jerry Frempong’s wife Kate was doing a Spring -clean at the family home. At the bottom of the garden, in among a pile of rusty garden tools and so on, she discovered a couple of mysterious bin-bags. She was about to assign them to the skip with everything else, but a sixth sense persuaded her to check the contents. It was a huge pile of rare soul, funk, disco, boogie and- yes – Ghana Highlife records. Kate brought this to the attention of Jerry, who immediately understood the significance of the treasure trove.

"Picking Up the Pieces" is Jewel's 14-track LP through Sugar Hill Records. She self-produced the record - with her first producer, the late Ben Keith, always in mind - and hired a band comprised mostly of Neil Young collaborators to help her strip away the veneer she’d built up over two decades in the music business.

On her new album Freewheelin’ Woman, Jewel presents her boldest and most unbridled body of work to date, revealing entirely new dimensions of her breathtaking voice. In giving life to such a powerful selection of songs, the four-time Grammy Award-nominated artist immersed herself in a process she refers to as a spiritual rewilding—a reawakening of the raw creative energy that first set her on her path as an ever-evolving singer/songwriter.

Seven years after rebooting her career with the vaguely back-to-basics Picking Up the Pieces, Jewel declares she's a Freewheelin' Woman, making an ebullient, eclectic album to match. Although the record does have a couple of quieter, reflective moments reminiscent of her folky beginnings, Freewheelin' Woman is anchored in soul and stretches out toward pop, moving quickly through all the byways separating the styles. Jewel sings about heartbreak a fair amount here, yet the record never seems heavy or sad. Take "Living with Your Memory," a brassy exercise in prime Muscle Shoals R&B: her clever spin is that the memory loves her stronger and longer than any man ever could. Jewel doesn't always indulge in a joke. Presented here as a duet with Darius Rucker, "No More Tears (Theme from Lost in America)" – an anthem for a 2018 documentary about homelessness, not a chestnut from the classic 1985 Albert Brooks comedy – is as earnest as she ever gets, as is the melancholy lament "When You Loved Me." These moments function as texture and color on an album that takes the sentiment of "Dance Sing Laugh Love" to heart: it's a bright, cheerful bit of self-empowerment that is as infectious as it is positive.