Jewel has picked up, figuratively speaking, from where she began twenty years earlier. In September of last year, the singer-songwriter, released “Picking Up The Pieces,” her twelfth studio album.







The album is a return to her stripped-down folk roots that made her 1995 debut album “Pieces of You,” one of the best-selling debut albums of all time.







In addition to the new album, Jewel also released her memoir, “Never Broken,” around the same time as “Picking Up The Pieces.”







Jewel will be performing a solo acoustic show at the Carnegie of Homestead Music Hall on April 28 to support the album and book.







She recently took the time out to talk with The Swerve Magazine.







Swerve Magazine: When you sat down to write your book, did you find it difficult to write about your life experiences in long form as opposed to penning songs about them?







Jewel: I had never written long form before, so I think that was my most daunting challenge. I have a tremendous amount of respect for writing as a craft. I've always written in short form and so I was a bit nervous about that. I wrote the book for pretty specific reasons, too. One was because I was going through a divorce, and I've always found writing cathartic, but there's no need to publish that. The reason I actually wrote a book to publish was because I wanted to answer the question that I've been being asked pretty much since I've been in the spotlight, (which is) “How do you go from an abusive background to moving out at fifteen to becoming homeless, and turn those things around? I was agoraphobic. I had eating disorders. I had all kinds of problems. I had no resources. I didn't have access to therapists or even family groups.







Being homeless, obviously, is incredibly isolating and frightening, and I know how much people suffer. I know that a lot of people feel that they can't be happy until they get on their feet or until they get the right house or the right husband or the right partner or the right therapist. That is a falsehood. I had to share enough of what I went through in my hardships so that people could understand what it took for me to overcome that.







SM: Your latest album came out around the same time as the book. Is that something that you planned on?







J: Yeah. I wanted to release them at the same time for a somewhat selfish reason, and that's because I'm a mom now. I didn't want to have to promote two projects separately and leave the house twice, basically. I wanted to put them out together so that I could do one press set for both, thus leaving the house less frequently for my child.







SM:With this new album being more of a folk album, was it more, actually I want to say liberating, but easier for you not having to deal with the pressures of record labels to try to pen some more radio friendly hits, and you just basically wrote these songs from the heart?







J: Yeah. I took the time off to get pregnant and to be a mom and sort of get my mom legs under me. I knew that I would not give a major label what they needed and required to release an album, and the cost of doing that. I knew I didn't want to do a six month radio tour. I knew I didn't want to go around to radio for a year and try and get my singles on the air. I also knew that I didn't want to make a record where I took into consideration a single thing other than what was in my heart and in my soul. I didn't think about radio. I didn't think about genre. I didn't think about tempo. I just forgot everything and made a very honest record, and decided to release independently.







SM: You also produced this album.







J: I'm comfortable producing. I didn't think I would produce this album. The producer that I was going to work with, (Paul Worley), who is a good friend of mine, kept backing out. He said he thought I was the only one that should produce it because of the type of record I was wanting to make. I thought he was full of it, and I was pretty upset with him. He knew that I would thank him one day for it, and I did end up thanking him. He really believed in me, and I didn't quite (believe in myself). It did allow me to make a record where I wasn't interpreted by anybody else. It really is exactly who and what I am. That is what it needed to be.









SM:In addition to some of the newer material on the album, there are a few songs that you've been doing live in your shows since practically day one. What made you include them on an album at this point?





J: They've always been these underground fan favorites, but I never had the chance to get them on a record because they weren't fitting what I was interested in. At first, I was kind of heading into experimenting with tracks that are upbeat. I was playing large venues and I was needing to do just more uptempo (music). Then, I really wanted to go into pop and then country, so these songs didn't quite fit anywhere until this album. It just took a folk album, or whatever you call this. I don't know what you call my music. It took this type of record to include “Carnivore,” for instance, or these songs that have been these underground hits that I just never got a chance to do (on an album).







SM: You just touched on all the different genres of music that you've done in the past. I went back and listened to “Pieces of You,” and what struck me is that it had air play back then on both pop and alternative radio, but now listening to it almost twenty years later, it seems more of a country sounding album. It might even be more country than most country albums out now. Has it come full circle for you from that first album that you got all the pop success, and then on this album, especially with Dolly Parton and Rodney Crowell making guest appearances? Do you consider yourself more of an Americana artist?







J: I've always found genres fascinating that labels are so strict about these boxes, and so is radio. I don't think fans are, or at least I never was. I had Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn records along with my Maria Callas and my Joanie Mitchell and my Rickie Lee Jones. I liked rawness and I liked honesty. I didn't care what genre it was, I just cared if you were having the nerve to tell me who you were unapologetically. That's the music I've made. I've made different styles of music because it just genuinely is who I am. That's what I listened to.







I look at it like a closet. Some days you're in the mood for a cute, flirty sun dress, and other days you want to wear sweatpants. My music comes out of me that way. It depends on what I'm wanting to experience in my life. I don't know what you call my music. I'm very comfortable with the word folk. I'm comfortable with Americana with pop leanings. I don't know or really care what people call it. It has been funny to me though, how “You Were Meant For Me” ended up as a pop smash. I couldn't get it played on country radio because country radio at the time was Faith Hill and Shania Twain, which were a lot more pop, frankly than I was.







It's something interesting to watch, radio genres switch around. When I went into the country genre they were like, "What makes you country?" I'm like, "Well, you might listen to my first record. I don't know."







Neil Young and Bob Dylan really drilled it into my head that you have to follow your muse. You have to follow where your music takes you. Not out of calculation and contrivance, but if that's really authentically what you need to do as an artist, you have to do it no matter what.







SM:How was it working with Dolly Parton for this new album?







J: Oh, a dream come true. She's everything you hope that she is. I have such respect for her as a business woman and as a songwriter, and it meant a lot to me that she liked that song and that she based doing the duet with me on that song, on the lyrics, which I thought was very flattering when you have a hero like your lyrics. It reminded her of some of her songs like “Coat of Many Colors.”







SM:Are you more comfortable going on the road just you and your guitar at this point? Do you envision somewhere down the line that you'll be having a full band again?







J: I personally think I'm at my best solo acoustic. Even when I've done band shows, I tend to do a solo set. If I come to the point where I go into larger venues at some point or make a record that needs a band, I'd definitely do that again. I'd hate to say I'm never touring with a band again, because I would miss it. I do think that you see what's unique or special about me when I'm alone on stage.





















