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Overview
"There really aren't mistakes. Be very adventurous and brave in your life. Love bravely, live bravely, be courageous--there's really nothing to lose. There's no wrong you can't make right again, so be kind to yourself. . . There are no bounds." --Jewel
Angel Standing By offers an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at the struggles and successes of Jewel Kilcher, who in a few short years went from living in her van near the beach in San Diego to becoming a multiplatinum recording artist and nationally best selling author. With personal photographs and exclusive interview material, this fascinating account is not to be missed by any fan moved by the music of Jewel.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781250092557 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | St. Martin's Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 08/04/2015 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 123 |
| File size: | 254 KB |
About the Author
P.J. McFarland is the pseudonym for a well-regarded journalist who, over the last decade, has written for a host of leading publications, including Rolling Stone, SPIN, Vanity Fair, Details, and The Los Angeles Times. He is an intimate acquaintance of Jewel's professional circle of friends.
Read an Excerpt
Angel Standing By
The Story of Jewel
By P. J. McFarland
St. Martin's Press
Copyright © 1999 P. J. McFarlandAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-250-09255-7
CHAPTER 1
Morning Song
You can't tell a whole life story, even if you've lived it. As soon as you start pulling out the pieces it looks like something else. There's a tendency to focus on the more dramatic. The natural flow of things gets lost.
— Lenedra Carroll, Jewel's mother
Alaska gets all the credit, but Payson, Utah, is the unsung birthplace of Jewel Kilcher. In a small town near the center of the state, just south of Provo, Jewel entered the world without a middle name on May 23, 1974, the second child of Atz Kilcher and Lenedra Carroll.
Jewel took her first breath during a particularly tumultuous time in America's history: the energy crisis produced long gas lines and short tempers across the nation; Richard Nixon was feeling the heat from Watergate and would resign his presidency in three short months; polyester and bellbottoms were all the rage. Men wore their hair as long as possible, and all over their faces. The Vietnam war, televised before a gaping generation of Americans, was coming to a close.
Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway confronted their demons in Chinatown; Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino protected the Corleone family's interests in The Godfather, Part II. We were nostalgic for the 1950s, spending time with Richie Cunningham and his friends Fonzie, Potsie, and Ralph on Happy Days. David Bowie's Diamond Dogs was on the radio, along with Elton John's The Bitch Is Back.
Tellingly, Joni Mitchell was enjoying her greatest commercial success in mid-1974. Her Court and Spark album, with hits "Free Man in Paris" and "Help Me," was on Billboard's Top Ten the week Jewel was born. Although the young star is often compared to the legendary Canadian singer/songwriter, Jewel admits she didn't become familiar with Mitchell's music until after she'd written most of her debut album, Pieces of You.
Jewel wasn't long in Utah. The family, which included Jewel's parents and older brother, Shane, soon made its way north and west, across the plains and desolate territories of Canada to Alaska. They settled south of Anchorage, in the Kilcher family's 770-acre homestead, eleven miles outside the town of Homer. Soon thereafter, Jewel's younger brother, named Atz like his father, was born.
By the midseventies, most American singer/songwriters — indeed most Americans — were accustomed to modern conveniences. They flipped switches and on came the lights. They had eight-track tape players in their cars, and stereo systems in their living rooms. Some had central air-conditioning and heat. But the Kilchers were a throwback: they lived simply off their land, without running water or electricity. Their heat came from a coal stove that needed constant attention; for water, they relied on a pump behind their house that snaked down to a nearby stream. When the stream flooded — and it flooded often — worms squirmed through the pump's tap. And showers? Not a chance. The Kilchers often bathed in a homemade pool they shared with their neighbors. With an ever-growing menagerie of kids and animals, the Kilchers were the twentieth-century version of the Ingalls family, living contentedly in a little house on the prairie. And Ma and Pa Kilcher were troubadours of the pioneer spirit.
Atz and Nedra had dabbled in music when living in Payson, Utah's, artistic community while also juggling academic pursuits and child-rearing, but music became more fundamental after their trek to Alaska. In fact, singing was one of the many things the clan did for its supper. There was always music, and it permeated every aspect of their lives. A meal could not be eaten without a singalong to whet the appetite.
A few years after their move from Utah, Atz and Nedra became a folksinging duo of note in America's forty-ninth state. Their songs were straightforward and honest, melodic and tied to the land. Atz and Nedra even released two albums. The first, 1977's Early Morning Gold, was an acoustic collection of modern Alaskan folk songs — all of which Atz had a hand in writing. 1978's Born and Raised on Alaska Land, more glossily produced, also featured all original material, and included a contribution from Atz's sister, Mairiis "Mossy" Davidson, who was no slouch in the songwriting department, either. Having recorded and released an album in 1977, North Wind Calling — Mossy Davidson's Alaska, Mossy was a popular barroom performer. Atz and Nedra became not only a popular attraction in Alaska's nightclubs, lounges, and dinner theaters, with a reputation known far and wide, they were credited with creating the first real Alaskan folk music.
Twenty years after the recording of those albums, Atz Kilcher remains such an important part of Alaska's musical fabric that he will never be known merely as the father of Jewel. In fact, up there it's the other way around. Atz is considered something of a state treasure — a top-notch entertainer, songwriter, and storyteller. Teaching music at elementary schools in and around Homer, Atz is a keeper of Alaska's cultural flame. In an era of information overload, where bits and pieces of data fly by us at hyperspeed, he is a reminder that one's heritage is important, something to be maintained and passed to future generations. It is a lesson his daughter learned well.
* * *
The Kilcher family had actually planted roots in Alaska a generation earlier. Jewel's grandparents arrived in the territory from Switzerland in 1941, amid the chaos of World War II. They settled in Homer, a blip of a town, but one of great beauty, with its majestic snowcapped mountains, glaciers, fjords, and ample wildlife. Millions of birds migrate to Kachemak Bay each year, soaring over moose and bears, lakes and streams, and Cook Inlet, where many halibut swim. Indeed, locals call Homer the halibut capital of the world.
Beginning as a place where coal and gold miners looked to strike it rich in the late nineteenth century, Homer was more of a bust than a boomtown for its first settlers. The community got its name from one of its early dreamers, Homer Pennock, who recognized its rich beauty and wealth of resources. The sheer gorgeousness of the region has made an impression on settlers the world over. It was known as Summerland by the Russians because of its lushness during the temperate months. The Aleuts along the Alaskan Peninsula called it Smoking Bay, thanks to the legacy of the coal miners. The Alaskan Chamber of Commerce's description, though, says it all: Shangri-la. "Because nowhere else in the forty-ninth state do all the elements of Alaskan beauty come together quite so felicitously." Jewel calls Kachemak Bay her favorite place in the world.
Yule Kilcher came to Shangri-la to create a better life for his family. He settled 320 acres on Kachemak, and as he hand-cleared hundreds of acres of the land by himself, the homestead steadily grew. Yule was, and still is, a tireless worker on the land. He was determined to hunker down in his new country, possessing the do-anything-to-succeed attitude that was common of emigrants leaving Europe during the first half of the twentieth century. And, like many immigrant families of the period, the Kilchers were a large clan. In all, Yule and his wife Ruth had eight children: Mairiis, Wurtila, Fay, Sunrise, Otto, Stellavera, Catkin, and Atz.
Like many of Homer's early settlers, Jewel's paternal grandfather was also a dreamer, with a streak of fearlessness and invincibility. There's nothing, he thought, that a human being couldn't do if only he'd give it a try. More than a little of Jewel's undeniable drive came from her grandfather's example. In fact, when Alaska applied for statehood, Yule wanted to have a hand in Alaska's destiny, so he became a local political force, and got elected to the state senate. In 1959, when Alaska was admitted as the forty-ninth state in the union, he was among the primary authors of its constitution. A renaissance man in every way, he made a film about life on the homestead, which he took on the road, conducting lecture tours throughout the U.S. and in Europe about living off the land. And he still hasn't slowed down. If you're ever in Homer, be careful he doesn't run you over as he tools through town in a horse and buggy, which he uses to get around when his car isn't running.
Yule — like the Kilchers who followed him — was trained in all things artistic. The Kilchers' settlement was isolated, far from town, and by turning their attention to artistic pursuits, the family could lose themselves in a magical, self-contained world of boundless creativity. They were making music, but also weaving, carving, writing, and painting. It certainly kept the growing clan occupied.
But Yule did more than simply instruct his family about the joys of music and art. With Ruth by his side, he barnstormed across Alaska and the continent, singing about the pleasures of nature and melting the crowds lucky enough to hear him. His was an era where if you wanted a house you built it yourself, and if you liked music you played and sang it yourself. He instilled in his children, and in those he met in his travels, the need to be artistically self-sufficient. He created culture wherever he went, and he knew instinctively that the arts created a framework whereby people could better know themselves, and better appreciate their world.
Every day was a gift to Yule and Ruth Kilcher. It was not an easy life, but the couple turned to music as a solace from the hardship of their existence. Alaska is beautiful and lush in the summertime, but can be cold and unforgiving in winter. Music took the Kilchers away from their troubles and brought them closer as a family. "Singing was always a big unifying force [in the family], no matter what other conflicts went on," Atz's sister Mossy Davidson once said. "You can't be mad at each other when you have to harmonize."
* * *
Certainly the harmonies, which were passed on to the next generation, helped distract the family from the cruel Alaskan winters they had to endure. Temperatures regularly dropped below freezing, and none of the Kilcher kids wanted to be the first to the outhouse, which had to be thawed daily. Jewel and her brothers shared a bedroom, and the trio often argued about who'd be the unlucky one to leave the warmth of their coverlet and make their outhouse stall functional in the subzero temperatures. Eventually it became a moot point for Jewel, who was often up before the sun anyway to milk the cows.
How cold was it? So cold that the coal stove meant to heat their dwelling would freeze and go out during the night. So cold that clothes would have to be thrown under the blankets before dressing could be tended to. And so cold, Jewel would recall, that every morning crystals of frost would start forming on the Kilcher kids' eyelashes.
Without TV or radio, without Happy Days or David Bowie or Joni Mitchell or Olivia Newton-John, without the Atari video games that had become must-haves across the continental United States, without even the attention-diverting board games and manufactured toys that kept most children occupied through their childhoods, the Kilcher children found other ways to amuse themselves. They spent their days playing outside, letting their imaginations develop and run wild. They learned that days and nights are punctuated by a setting sun and rising stars. That weather travels with the wind. That the color of leaves is as reliable a calendar as any hanging on the wall. "A lot of kids grow up knowing how to bank, but I'm a retard about city things," Jewel has said about her early years in Homer. "But I know what a porcupine sounds like climbing a tree."
The wilds of Homer were not only Jewel's playground, they were her first classroom. It wasn't until fourth grade that Jewel attended public school. In the years before, during the harsh winter months, Atz often took his three children to the edge of a nearby canyon, where they'd listen to the wind and the rustle of leaves and branches. God's music. Sometimes they'd dig at the sides of the cliff, exposing the frozen willow roots. Then they'd dig up the roots and weave them into baskets. Jewel learned how trees grew, from roots to trunk to branches to leaves. She learned that plants and animals are born, and live, and die. She could name the flowers and the trees, and she learned about the "birds and the bees" and about the difference between the sexes — not from textbooks, but by watching animals breed. It was an education in real life. Jewel realized knowledge could be gleaned at every turn. Freed from the restrictions of textbooks, Jewel felt unencumbered, able to open and trust the creative side of her mind at a tender age.
* * *
The amount of work required to maintain the homestead, sowing and reaping, milking and feeding, helped Jewel develop a strong sense of discipline, as well as a superhuman work ethic. This enabled her as an adult to do the work required for success as an entertainer. It was her mother's artistic training, however, that gave Jewel her first lessons on what it takes to be a musician. Nedra worked as a glass sculptor during Jewel's early childhood, and was relentless in imposing her attitudes about the creative process; growing up became one giant workshop for Jewel and her brothers about maintaining and utilizing artistic resources and instincts. By the time Jewel was five, Nedra was providing creative challenges to her children, like the poetry workshops she conducted for her little ones the first Monday of every month. Days became filled with ideas and thoughts and observations. Among the concepts Nedra taught her kids was the connection of things that offered a similar emotional response even though the things weren't necessarily similar. When Jewel realized this was the case with lambs and clouds, it became the subject of one of her earliest poems. Jewel was hooked: a writer at age five.
Even before she was writing poetry, though, Jewel was riding horses. As a young child she had her own horse named Clearwater, who turned out to be a loyal companion for the young girl, and a great mode of transportation, especially during the snowy winters, when she often rode him to school. Jewel and Clearwater were inseparable. Only on Clearwater could she have moved so swiftly through thickets and trees and experienced the wilds of nature as if she were an integral part of it. While other kids waited impatiently for learner's permits, Jewel was a "licensed driver" before she could read. Clearwater was her best friend. They were beautiful together.
In truth, though, nobody thought Clearwater would survive when the Kilchers adopted him. He was seriously ill and Jewel's parents believed he had little chance of living. The horse wouldn't eat. Atz and Nedra worried that Jewel might get too attached to her new pet, only to experience the pain of losing him. But Jewel refused to accept that Clearwater wouldn't survive. He just couldn't die — it wasn't possible. Jewel gathered bales of hay and stayed with the animal day and night. She wouldn't give up until her horse began to eat. And, eventually, he did. Purposeful even as a young child, Jewel somehow nursed him back to health. Even then, Jewel had the power to heal.
* * *
The Kilchers weren't a religious family in the conventional sense. They had been Mormons for a period of Jewel's youth, but gradually embraced a broader, less dogmatic spirituality. Atz was a social worker at that time, and helping others became a religion in itself. And besides, as Jewel said, "Being raised in Alaska on an eight-hundred-acre homestead, you just felt godliness around you. And that you were part of it. It was more about innocence and enlightenment than control." One need only listen to her song "Painters" to understand that Jewel's religion is based on a quest for knowledge about things larger than herself. The sky, for example, or the mountains, or the large open spaces of her home state.
These spaces also made her aware of the power of dreams. She'd bask in the immensity of the silence around her. In silence, she has said, "You create yourself ... you hear who you're going to become." To this day, Jewel travels with mementos of her youth in Homer. Along with photographs and other memories, she keeps a jar of earth to remind her of her roots.
In fourth grade, when Jewel joined other children in public school, she had a far stronger background in the arts, sciences, music, and philosophy than other children. This made her something of a cultural misfit, perhaps, but it prepared her for the life she would be forced to live years later — a life in which she acted as an example to others.
Jewel learned about adversity early in her school life. She had been a good, eager learner at home. She had enjoyed and excelled at writing and drawing and sculpting. She had even seemed to read well as a child. But she encountered problems with reading soon after arriving at McNeill Canyon Elementary School. At first she thought she simply wasn't smart enough. Where other kids would fly through a passage, it would take Jewel three or four attempts. She became frustrated, and seemed to like reading less and less. It would take some time for her to understand she had dyslexia. This failed to deter her, and it ultimately made her stronger. At ten years old, Jewel was more rounded, and more talented than her peers. What she lacked as a reader, she more than made up in other ways. She was an extraordinary girl.
As early as anyone can remember, Jewel listened to music. Her first record (a tape, actually — without electricity, Jewel heard music on a portable cassette player that used batteries) aside from those in her parents' collection, turned out to have been bought accidentally. It was Pink Floyd's The Wall, which Jewel purchased in an Anchorage supermarket. But, as a five-year-old whose reading skills were still fairly rudimentary, she bought what she thought was a Pink Panther record. She listened to the cassette over and over again, almost wearing it out, thinking songs like "Another Brick in the Wall" and "Comfortably Numb" were being sung by a furry pink cartoon creature.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Angel Standing By by P. J. McFarland. Copyright © 1999 P. J. McFarland. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Copyright Notice,
Author's Note,
Prologue,
Chapter One: Morning Song,
Chapter Two: From Roots to Wings,
Chapter Three: In the Rough,
Chapter Four: Little Sister,
Chapter Five: The Seduction,
Chapter Six: Soul for Sale,
Chapter Seven: Turning a Corner,
Chapter Eight: Crown Jewel,
Copyright,