Jewel Kilcher

Jewel Kilcher was born on 23rd of May 1974 at St. George, Utah, USA. But she was raised in Homer, Alaska on an 800-acre land. When she was five years old she started performing by going to Eskimo villages with her parents and entertains the tourists. She spent her junior and senior years of high school at Interlochen Fine Arts Academy in Michigan. Interlochen Fine Arts Academy was a very expensive private school, and she could manage it because almost 70% of her tuition was paid by a vocal scholarship. To manage her scholarship she had to sing in the opera. The remaining 30% was raised by Jewel herself in her first solo concert. Not to forget about the citizens of Homer who paid the rest of the first year tuition. Her summer jobs raised the money the next year. After finishing her high school education, Jewel moved to San Diego and stayed with her mother. Then she went to Colorado and returned back to San Diego after a while. At that point of time she also worked as a waitress, but unfortunately lost the job due to her great interest in chatting with the customers than doing the main job. Later she stopped doing such jobs.

She then got involved with her VW van carrying carrot sticks and peanut butter. She also carried a guitar and some papers to write down songs in her free time.

She then began to perform at the Inner Change which was a coffeehouse in Pacific Beach to very small crowds which gathered there. As time passed everyone started to know about Jewel`s performance and soon she achieved a regular Thursday night show. The audience started to increase with every show. Then the local press started to cover her and she got instant publicity. She suddenly got a few choice for opening shows. At the end of that year she went back to Homer and everything began to roll in smoothly for her when she returned in early 1994.

When she returned and began performing, the coffeehouse was maximum 60% full. She used to sing new songs in every show. Collaborator Steve Poltz, the lead singer of the Rugburns also joined Jewel regularly. Then she was joined by local musicians Joy Eden Harrison, Byron Nash, Rob Driscoll and Gregory Page.

The news of about this show also spreaded to L.A. and record executives started to visit San Diego to catch a glimpse of the rising talent.

They immediately found out the talent and quality of what they saw. After this she signed a contract with Atlantic Records, and went to L.A. to look for producers and musicians with whom she can record her songs. She rented a house with the advance she got from the contract and also bought a used Volvo car and a new guitar. These exposures helped attract crowds to the Inner Change. This made Inner Change to add a second show, and then increase the admission price from $3 to $5. At this point of life Jewel wrote over a hundred songs. On the 28th and 29th of July 1994 a sound crew recorded 4 sets of Jewel, performing at Inner Change.

From here on Jewel began to look beyond Inner Change for larger venues to perform. Then she performed two shows at the Wikiup Cafe in Hillcrest. At last Jewel`s first album was about to be released. A large number of activities followed before the release of Jewel`s first album.

She had to tour to four coffee shops within four weeks in four cities.

`Pieces of You` which was Jewel`s first album got to the market in February 28, 1995. A party was held at the Hahn Cosmopolitan Theater in San Diego. She performed two shows there and they were completely sold out.