’90s folk star Jewel is finally happy; now she wants to know: Are you?
HERSHEY, Pennsylvania: She has sung for a pope and a president, but tonight, Jewel will style her own hair and sing Christmas carols with her dad at a cosy theatre in small-town Pennsylvania.
It is a dramatic drop in altitude for a folk singer-turned-megastar whose debut album went platinum 15 times over back in the ‘90s, when she posed for the cover of Time magazine and sang duets with Bob Dylan. But Jewel Kilcher — who became first-name famous — says this is exactly the life she hoped for, the outcome of a promise she made to herself long ago.
“Fame doesn’t always happen at a human pace,” she says, her lips curving into the enigmatic half-smile immortalised on the cover of her 1995 debut, “Pieces of You.”
“Fame happens sometimes at a pace that causes a lot of psychological problems,” she continues. “So my mission, No. 1, was to be a happy, whole human, and No. 2 was to be a musician. And that’s what I’ve been doing my whole career, and that’s where I am today.”
At 43, Jewel is a prolific songwriter, a best-selling poet and occasional actress — along with other roles, she stars in the Hallmark Channel’s “Fixer Upper” mystery movie series. She’s also a single mom to a sixyear-old boy who lives with her in Nashville.
In song, she can summon many voices — deep and powerful, girlish and sweet, piercing and agile — but in conversation, she speaks in a soft alto, absentmindedly twisting golden strands of hair around her fingers. She exudes a thoughtful warmth, calling to mind the word so often assigned to her by fans and critics alike since the start of her career: earnest. Fortunately, she doesn’t mind it. “I never saw that as an insult — ‘Oh, she’s so earnest.’ I always clung to that,” she says. “I think there’s a danger in all of our jobs when we become too proficient at them. There’s something very, very special about the beginning of anyone’s career, when it’s raw talent, when it’s raw will, when it’s raw drive. Because that’s when you’re innovative, because no one has told you the rules or the parameters that you have to operate by.”
In an era still gripped by grunge, Jewel climbed to the top of the pop charts with sweet, simple folk tunes. Her poetry collection sold over two million copies, becoming one of the top-selling volumes of poetry in American history.
Maybe the success of her early, imperfect art isn’t so surprising. In moments of despair or disillusionment, Jewel has found that people gravitate toward the heartfelt vibes that have always been her hallmark: “You can only feel crappy for so long and then you go, ‘Now what?’” she says.
So she has always tried to offer answers, through song, poetry, prose and, now, as an entrepreneur. Last year, she launched Jewel Inc., a parent company encompassing every aspect of her essential Jewel-ness. It includes “Whole Human” — a mindfulness-focused programme that markets training resources to companies and school districts — and JewelNeverBroken.com, a non-profit website that bills itself as an “emotional fitness destination” for those seeking more balance and happiness in their lives.
“If I can help people with any shortcuts, so it doesn’t take them as long as it took me, I’m happy to share those tips I’ve learned along the way,” she says. “These lessons took me 40 years to figure out, and it was a messy journey for me.”
With the introduction of Jewel Inc., the pop star has joined the growing ranks of celebrities who have made a personal brand their second act.
Like plenty of her celebrity compatriots, Jewel sprinkles her blog and website with a few favourite buzzwords: mindfulness, self-agency, creativity. Thiessen wants you to make handmade Valentines; Jewel’s holiday tour incorporated a craft fair, offering the opportunity to create a handmade gift.
Her idea is to bring mindfulness and balance to the corporate workplace, school classrooms and beyond.
Her ability to forgive also led her back to her father, Atz, who has become a very different man from the one depicted in the darkest chapters of Jewel’s memoir.
This is the first time Jewel’s family — her son, her father and her brothers Atz Lee and Nikos Kilcher — have all joined her for a full tour. Her father is sober now and a celebrity in his own right, starring with his sons on the Discovery Channel reality show “Alaska: The Last Frontier.” The show, which profiles the lives of the family on their remote homestead, is in its seventh season. “My dad’s a miracle. He changed in his 60s. And for anybody out there struggling with shame or addiction or the fear that so much of their life has gone in a certain direction and it’s too late to change it, my dad is proof that that isn’t the case,” she says. “We are able to have a really honest and authentic relationship that I never thought we’d have.”