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JEWEL

Against-grain coffee shop folk/blues strummage from Canadian songstress in pursuit of passion

In the same way that Joan Osborne's One Of Us burrowed its way into the pop consciousness earlier this year, so Jewel's Who Will Save Your Soul, with it's loping, bluesy take on hustling consumer society, has become a huge slow-growing hit in the US. With her laid-back scat, soul and strong folk inflections, Jewel doesn't see herself as part of the current pack.

"I'm not an obvious radio girl. I'm coffee shop acoustic music and that's not what's common now. I'm up against Green Day or Morissette, and not an automatic choice. A lot of stations said I was unlistenable - that they'd play me over their dead bodies." she says, laughing. Now 20 years old, Jewel has gained that elusive Top 40 status, with her album Pieces Of You having sold 400,000 in the States. Produce by Ben Keith, who has worked with both Patsy Cline and Neil Young, it's a subtle debut that took time to break through. The Alaskan-born songwriter recorded it two years ago, just after she signed to the Atlantic label, and it was released February 1995. "I don't mind that it took that long. I was glad just to build a solid songwriter's fan base."

Most of the songs were written while Jewel Kilcher was living on her own in a van outside San Diego. Having grown up on an 800-acre Alaskan homestead that was settled by her Swiss immigrant grandfather, she is used to being close to nature. She and her brother's rode horses, and had no television, shower or running water. "I'd get teased at school because of my lifestyle. But I never felt ashamed. I was proud of being able to build a barbed wire fence. I felt very close to the environment and I had an intricate place within it. In the city you lose your connection with yourself, whereas out there in the silence of the country we hear who we've to become and create ourselves."

Jewel's penchant for poetry was tuned into music early on. From the age of six she was accompanying her father, folk artist Atz Kilcher, on tour, learning "how to handle club owners, drunks, and be an entertainer". Later, on a high school vocal scholarship at Michigan's Fine Art Academy, she began writing her own songs - slices of life that she honed after moving with her mother to San Diego. Now Jewel sees herself as part of a fresh generation.

"Music reflects social opinion. In the '60s it was about exploring the sexual revolution, the '80s was asleep, the '90s was, Hey, I feel removed, confused, hateful. That's where Nirvana came in. But if you stay there you die. You can't live separate from hope. You shouldn't kill yourself, you have to push beyond - that's where my music is. My life reminds people that passion creates passion."

Jewel : Pieces Of UK

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