Polished Jewel: Break from performing has revitalized songwriter

Kirk Baird

Friday, July 19, 2002 | 9:32 a.m.

Who: Jewel.

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday.

Where: Hard Rock Hotel's The Joint.

Tickets: $41, $56, $81.

Information: (702) 693-5000.

Jewel had enough.

More than 20 million records sold, all the surrounding publicity, the constant touring ... quite simply, the singer-songwriter felt her career was getting too big and she needed a break.

"I felt like it was a good time to step back and make sure what my motives were and what I wanted out of it," the 28-year-old recording star said during a recent interview from a Boston hotel room. "Sort of re-evaluate and re-assess it all."

Back on the road, Jewel performs Wednesday at The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel.

During her self-imposed career hiatus, Jewel discovered she was still a writer at heart.

"I got into the music business because I really enjoy writing. Writing gives me a purpose ... I get to be around people all over the world," she said. "That's a really unique and great opportunity.

"I have always tried to base my career on supporting the craft, supporting the artistry. While doing that I happened to get really big. And it got big enough to where a tremendous amount of energy was put on promotion and very little was left over for writing, which is what I originally set out to do."

She went on a short solo tour backed by little publicity. It was her way of getting back to the basics.

"Adulation and record sales were not quite enough to make me feel like working as hard as I was," Jewel said. "So I got back to listening and watching. And I toured without all the rest of it."

Best known for the folk-pop hits "Who Will Save Your Soul," "You Were Meant for Me," "Foolish Games" and "Hands," Jewel Kilcher struggled early in her career.

Although well-chronicled, the story surrounding the years before her discovery by a record executive seems almost an urban legend.

The singer-songwriter began her musical career in the coffeehouses of San Francisco. Money was tight for Jewel in those days, so rather than scrape by to pay rent and other monthly bills, she opted to move into her 1969 Volkswagen Bus.

But her 1995 debut album, "Pieces of You," changed all that.

Her poetic, insightful lyrics and playful-yet-compelling voice were the perfect companions to her down-home, folksy music. With the help of MTV, VH1 and FM radio stations clamoring for a new post-grunge sound, Jewel's career took off.

And it didn't hurt that she had a natural beauty.

Jewel was still in her early 20s when her career took off. And many of the songs from her first album were written while she was still in her teens.

For her latest album, "This Way," the musician seems to have grown as a songwriter, although Jewel laughs at the thought.

"It's actually been amazing because a lot of the press, they'll cite certain songs as marking a maturity in my life and I wrote these songs when I was young," she said. "It's kind of a joke."

She also said she never felt the need to update older songs to match her feelings today. Nor is she embarrassed by older songs from other albums, even though she may have written them a decade ago.

"It's sort of like pictures of yourself," Jewel said. "Yeah, you look back at a picture and think, 'Look at that permed hair.' But, it's still what it is," Jewel said. "You can either hide that from the whole world or you can pretty much trust the whole world. It's a part of life, I don't feel precious about it.

"I've never tried to be real perfect, I've just tried to be honest. I've tried to develop over time my craft, so you're going to see a progression."

Jewel recently made headlines after a riding mishap in April while at the Texas ranch of her boyfriend, former rodeo star Ty Murray.

Jewel spent much of her youth in on an 800-acre family homestead in Alaska and is used to riding horses. But this one caught her off-guard.

"I was riding a colt that a cowboy gave me," she said. "I hadn't ridden a colt in a while, but this one was really good at bucking."

Jewel suffered a broken collarbone and a broken rib from the accident and had to postpone some promotional dates. She also temporarily put down her guitar while her body healed.

"It's painful, but not as painful as before," she said of her injuries.

The singer is on the road again, which she prefers to a studio, because performing live enhances the depth of her sound.

"I've never been able to capture on CD what I do live. Personally, I feel like I'm a much better performer," Jewel said. "It's a much more 3-D show, it's a hologram, where I think a CD is one-dimensional."

With "This Way," however, Jewel said she has narrowed the gap considerably between her live and studio performances.

"I feel like this record is closer to a live show ... because I recorded it live," Jewel said. "I knew enough about the studio and production to be able to get what I wanted. But I do feel it represents me well."