Jewel Kilcher

Born in a remote tundra in Alaska, Jewel has come a long way. She is a singer, song writer, poet, actress, and painter and is a three time Grammy nominee. Jewel has sold 25 million albums worldwide and she had been on the covers of such diverse magazines as Time, People, Entertainment Weekly, Vanity Fair, InStyle, Glamour and Seventeen. She had gone platinum eleven times for her albums. But she didn’t always start off like that. She had to work hard for all of the accomplishments and that is why she is my hero.

She was born in Payton, Utah, but was raised in Homer and Anchorage, Alaska. Her mother was old-guard Mormon and father's parents were Swiss futurist immigrants. When she was eight her parents divorced and she spent more then half a dozen years with her father. While living with her father they would go to perform at places as a duet act. “We sang in biker bars and lumberjack joints. If the cops were ever called, I’d hide in the bathroom till they were gone,” she says. When she was fifteen she went by herself performing solo for the first time. She earned a scholarship to Interlochen, a private art school in Michigan, where she also majored in visual arts. That was where she learned how to play guitar and began her song writing. Her singing was her means of survival. One spring break she took a train and hitchhiked to Mexico where she was a street performer and that is where she got money. “I made up lyrics everywhere I went and eventually it turned into a very long song about what I saw around me," she recalls. I made it back to school two weeks later with an unformed song called “Who Will Save Your Soul.” All of this shows that even though she started out in these kinds of places she had enough determination to keep on trying. That is something that not a lot of people have and can do.

She made up that song at sixteen and had no idea that just three years later that song would be her single for her first album. She moved to San Diego and lived in a van that was stolen. She had to borrow l,000 dollars from a friend to buy another one. I think that this shows that she never gives up. Even living in a van she still had hope. She got her first gig at a coffee shop in Pacific Beach, where she got more and more fans until she had a huge local following. Soon Label A&R guys came as well. On Jewel’s 19th birthday she got signed onto Atlantic Records. Her first album was called “Pieces of You” and sold 3,000 copies mostly in San Diego. So Jewel hit the road playing four shows a day in 40 cities. After a year on the road, “Who Will Save Your Soul” became a major hit along with two other hit singles “You Were Meant for Me” and “Foolish Games.” Her sales of her CDs were up more than ever, but she wasn’t only in music.

Jewel’s songs appeared in movies such as Clueless, Batman & Robin, Phenomenon, and Sweet Home Alabama. She also was in the movie “Ride with the Devil” with Tobey Maguire and Skeet Ulrich. Jewel had been on television from “Saturday Night Live” to “Mad TV” and even was on an NBC drama “The Lyons Den” playing as a lawyer with Rob Lowe. She was also was guest judge on “American Idol”. Jewel does charities too like Higher Ground for Humanity which she donates a portion of her income to. Its main focus is the Clearwater Project, which organizes teams of scientists and engineers to bring safe, clean drinking water to impoverished communities worldwide: from Mexico to Africa, India to Tibet. Jewel also created Soul City Café, a multi-faceted program to expose and develop new talent in a variety of artistic media. The project included Soul City Café Art Beat, a showcase for emerging musical and spoken word artists who performed with Jewel on her 2002 tour.

Jewel has come a long way from where she used to be as an eight year old with her father singing in biker joints, or living in a van at 18, to where she is now. She has a lot of determination and never gives up. Not to mention all of the money she gives to charity. Jewel has talent and she can do anything she sets her mind to. She believes in herself and I believe in her. That is why Jewel is my hero!!!