Jewel

Best-selling singer-songwriter Jewel’s career as a versatile pop, adult contemporary, and country music recording artist led to a second outlet as a television personality and outspoken activist. She was born Jewel Kilcher on May 23, 1974, and raised in rural Homer, AK, where she showed an early talent for singing and regularly accompanied her folk musician/music teacher father onstage at venues. Her musicianship was further nurtured with opera training at the famed Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, after which Jewel joined her mother in San Diego and quickly built up a local following with regular coffeehouse performances of her original material. When the bohemian young folkie became the object of a record label bidding war, she ultimately signed with Atlantic and released her 1995 debut Pieces of You which spawned mega hits “Who Will Save Your Soul?” and “You Were Meant for Me.” The album spent nearly two years on the Billboard charts and sold over 12 million copies, making Jewel one of the most popular of the era’s flood of guitar-wielding female singers.

Despite the success of her folksy pop debut, the barely 20-year-old artist was anxious to explore wider musical territory and followed up with such diverse titles as the dance-oriented 0304, the Christmas album

Joy: A Holiday Collection, and spoken word album of original poetry Night Without Armor. Jewel maintained a steady fan following into the new millennium, leveraging her celebrity to boost children’s and homeless-related charities and co-founding Higher Ground for Humanity, a non-profit dedicated to making safe drinking water available in developing countries. The respected artist was also tapped to rate up-and-coming singers as a guest judge on “American Idol” (Fox, 2002- ) and served as host-turned-judge on its country music counterpart, “Nashville Star” (USA, 2003-07; NBC, 2008- ). Jewel joined in the reality TV adventures herself as a fearless participant in “Fast Cars and Superstars: The Gillette Young Guns Celebrity Race” (ABC, 2007) and “Ty Murray's Celebrity Bull Riding Challenge” (CMT, 2007), alongside her rodeo champ husband Murray. In another successful artistic shift, Jewel made her way to number one in the Billboard Country charts with “Perfectly Clear” (2008) and followed up with a high profile presence as a contestant on “Dancing with the Stars” (ABC, 2005- ) the following year, alongside fellow competitor, her husband, Murray.

• Also Credited As:
  Jewel, Jewel Kilcher, jewel kilcher
• Born:
  Jewel Kilcher on May 23, 1974 in Payson, Utah, USA
• Job Titles:
  Singer, Songwriter, Guitarist, Actress, Poet

Family

• Brother: Atz Kilcher. born c. 1977
• Brother: Shane Kilcher. born c. 1971
• Father: Atz Kilcher. divorced when Jewel was eight (c. 1982)
• Grandfather: Jay Carroll. built his own airplane and developed a business flying visitors to hunting areas
• Grandfather: Yule Kilcher. Swiss-born; emmigrated to Alaska, the last territory where the Homestead Act (which granted free land) was still in effect; spoke 12 languages; documented the homesteading experience on 16mm film; served as delegate to convention that wrote state s constitution; later served as a representative in the state legislature; died on December 8, 1998 at age 85
• Grandmother: Arva Carroll. pioneer wife and mother of four children
• Grandmother: Ruth Kilcher. one of the first female journalists in Alaska, writing a column about homesteading in an Anchorage daily; homeschooled their eight children
• Mother: Lenedra Carroll. Irish

Significant Others

• Companion: Sean Penn. romantically linked when he directed a music video ( You Were Meant For Me ) for her; Jewel later refilmed song with Poltz
• Husband: Ty Murray. Married Aug. 7, 2008 after 10 years together

Education

• Interlochen Arts Academy, Interlochen, MI, operatic voice, 1992

Milestones

• 1995 Released her debut album, Pieces of You with the singles You Were Meant for Me and Who Will Save Your Soul
• 1998 Published a book of poetry, A Night Without Armor
• 1998 Released second album, Spirit
• 1999 Made film debut in Ang Lee’s “Ride with the Devil”
• 1999 Released the documentary DVD, “Jewel: A Life Uncommon,” featuring live performances and candid interviews
• 2000 Penned her autobiography, Chasing Down the Dawn
• 2001 Released her most critically acclaimed album to date, “This Way”
• 2003 Co-hosted the reality competition series, “Nashville Star” (USA, 2003-2007; NBC, 2008-present)
• 2006 Released her sixth album, Goodbye Alice In Wonderland
• 2007 Dropped from Atlantic Records, after they failed to renew her contract
• 2007 Signed to Valory Records, which specializes in country music and is a division of Big Machine Records label
• 2008 Released her debut country album, Perfectly Clear
• 2009 Joined the eighth season of ABC’s reality competition, “Dancing with the Stars”; pulled out before the first episode due to an injury
• Began writing songs at the age of seventeen
• Discovered by Inga Vainshtein, while performing at the Innerchange Coffeehouse in San Diego
• Signed with Atlantic Records
• Traveled the country doing street performances and small gigs