ARTIST

Jewel

In 1997, all the critical accolades may have gone to Beck, but the real pop success story of that year belonged to a 21-year-old woman named Jewel Kilcher. Raised in Homer, Alaska, where she grew up in what might best be described as an alternative "hippie" environment (her parents, in fact, were a folk music duo before they divorced), Jewel began performing at the age of eight. She seemed to have a natural ability for music, and she later learned to play guitar while on scholarship at the prestigious Interlochen Music Academy in Michigan.

Kilcher eventually ended up in San Diego where, following a series of dead-end jobs and living in poverty - for a time, out of her car - she decided to pursue music full-time. She developed a large following while playing at that city's...
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