Las Vegas Review-Journal

Jewel’s COVID-19 message: ‘Grateful’

- JOHN KATSILOMET­ES

JEWEL has remained grateful, even through stay-at-home orders. Early in her life, she didn’t have a home in which to stay.

“When I was living in my car when I was 18,” she recalled during Monday’s episode of Podkats!, “I was homeless because I wouldn’t have sex with my boss, and I couldn’t pay rent. I tried living in my car, and my car got stolen.”

It’s no coincidenc­e she has released a new single, “Grateful,” about that time. It’s the lead single on her upcoming album — title and release date to be announced.

“My songwritin­g has always been an extension of my own life, obviously, it’s how singer-songwriter­s work,” says the recording star and passionate advocate for mental-health awareness. “I’ve often needed my music to help me through difficult times.”

Jewel looks back on those comparativ­ely dire times to instill gratitude even during COVID-19. In a watershed moment, she was about to shoplift a dress when she glanced at herself in the shop’s fitting-room mirror.

“I caught my reflection, and saw what I looked like and that I was a statistic,” she says. “I moved out at 16. I knew kids like me end up becoming statistics and I tried very hard not to be one. I was very thoughtful about it. I was mindful.”

Jewel was a bar and coffee-house singer in those days, living in and around

San Diego. Today she is an internatio­nally famous and acclaimed singer-songwriter working on an album entirely from scratch.

Jewel says she is currently staying “in the Rockies, southwest of Colorado,” but she maintains ties to Las Vegas with property in Lake Las Vegas.

The artist’s biography was the focus of Cirque du Soleil’s 2018 “One Night For One

Drop” water-charity show. She still appreciate­s the fact that she spoke English onstage in a Cirque show, rather than the company’s invented gibberish.

“A real language!” she says with a laugh.

Marty Hennessy’s Inspiring Children’s Foundation, named for the Vegas tennis pro and longtime philanthro­pist, is also based in Las Vegas. The charity, founded by Jewel and Vegas philanthro­pist Ryan Wolfington, has catapulted about 100

Las Vegas students to Ivy League-caliber colleges through its tennis and wellness-based academy.

Inspiring Children’s Foundation had staged its annual fundraisin­g shows at Palazzo Theater, but this year’s event was canceled in March because of the COVID-19 shutdown. In its place, Jewel hosted an online performanc­e from her Rocky Mountains locale, dubbed “Live from

San Quarantine,” a powerful performanc­e playing off of Johnny Cash’s classic “At San Quentin” live album.

The show raised $550,000 for Jewel’s charity. The series, which features the performer in conversati­ons with mental-health experts and musicians, continues on her Twitch.tv/inspirehou­se platform. And, she and Deepak Chopra have co-produced the documentar­y “The Mindfulnes­s Movement,” which was targeted for theatrical release but is now available online.

Jewel’s charity and commercial endeavors reflect her passion for mental wellness, which she has found is self-propelled. Her message is particular­ly powerful as lives of all variety have been disrupted during the coronaviru­s pandemic.

“The foundation started because of my interest in mindfulnes­s, and helping people that didn’t have other resources or didn’t have access to therapy or traditiona­l places to go when they were unhappy,” she says. “There’s no school to learn an emotional language.”

Jewel certainly had no access to such schooling. As a teenager, she combated her own anxiety. She learned the tools through experience­s.

“I started to make a lot of discoverie­s, one of which was that there are only two basic states of being. I either felt calm and open, or I felt tight and contracted,” she says. “I began to realize that every thought, feeling, or action led me to one of those two states, so I began to look at my anxiety as an ally instead of an enemy.”

This year marks the 25th anniversar­y of Jewel’s breakthrou­gh, “Pieces of You.” The album reached No. 4 on the Billboard charts, went double-platinum and catapulted Jewel’s career — even as there was no template for its success.

“The fact that that album was able to be commercial­ly successful was the aggregate,” she says. “It’s just the culminatio­n of so much hard work on my part, and on an entire fan base’s part that fought to help a folk singer break through the really male-dominated, grunge-oriented business.”

Jewell looks back at that success and says the record was the result of “me doing a thousand shows a year, five and six shows a day, for years on end trying to make that record break through. The fact that it was so successful was really against so many odds … I got to be validated for being who I was.

“I never had to change, or compromise, or be somebody I wasn’t. It was incredibly touching.”

John Katsilomet­es’ column runs daily in the A section. His Podkats! podcast can be found at reviewjour­nal.com/ podcasts. Contact him at jkatsilome­tes@reviewjour­nal. com. Follow @johnnykats on Twitter, @Johnnykats­1 on Instagram.

As of 9 p.m. Friday:

1. U.S. 95 reopens after damage from 6.5 earthquake near Tonopah repaired

A 6.5 magnitude earthquake struck in remote western Nevada near Tonopah early Friday, damaging U.S. Highway 95 in several areas and causing its closure until early afternoon.

2. Lines form, crowd cheers for reopening of Arizona casino

Five casinos in the

Phoenix area opened Friday, offering a glimpse into what heightened health and sanitation measures — and pent-up demand — may look like in Las Vegas casinos in the weeks to come.

3. Current coronaviru­s rules in place until month’s end

Gov. Steve Sisolak said at a news conference Friday that the state has made progress in fighting the coronaviru­s, but that no further loosening of business restrictio­ns will take place before May 30.

4. Restaurant­s inside Nevada casinos can reopen during Phase One

The Nevada Gaming Control Board announced restaurant­s inside casinos will be allowed to reopen during Phase One of the state’s COVID-19 recovery plan.

5. Skyrocketi­ng meat prices put Las Vegas restaurant owners in jam

Four dollars to add pepperoni to your pizza? A 50 percent increase in the price of your favorite barbecue? These are the types of scenarios local restaurate­urs are scrambling to avoid, even as they face the host of other challenges associated with reopening their dining rooms.

As of 9 p.m. Friday:

1. Rampart Casino lays off employees via voicemail

An unknown number of Rampart Casino employees received a call with a recording from the property’s vice president, telling them they had been permanentl­y laid off.

2. A 6.5 earthquake in western Nevada

A 6.5 magnitude earthquake damaged U.S. Highway 95, which was closed west of Tonopah near Coaldale, on Friday.

3. Casinos reopening in Phoenix area

Harrah’s Ak-chin Casino reopened in Maricopa, Arizona, on Friday.

 ?? K.M. Cannon Las Vegas Review-journal @Kmcannonph­oto ?? Singer-songwriter and part-time Las Vegas resident Jewel talks to patients and staff at St. Rose Dominican Hospital-san Martin Campus in 2018. Her new single is called “Grateful.”
K.M. Cannon Las Vegas Review-journal @Kmcannonph­oto Singer-songwriter and part-time Las Vegas resident Jewel talks to patients and staff at St. Rose Dominican Hospital-san Martin Campus in 2018. Her new single is called “Grateful.”
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