Jewel explains 'Masked Singer' turn 'This business is notoriously unkind

Jewel has sold nearly 20 million albums, been nominated for four Grammy Awards and maintains her standing as the most successful folk singer exported from Alaska. So why bury herself under the ginormous ruby-red headgear created for the Queen of Hearts on “The Masked Singer,” a show primarily recognized for its kitsch factor?“It checked a lot of boxes,” she tells USA TODAY from her home in Colorado. “I’m a mom and I’m 47, and you never hear women talking about kids and learning how to tour with a child who has nap times and school times. This business is notoriously unkind to women as they get older. Cher, Madonna, they’re great. But that’s so not who I am. My heroes, like Joni Mitchell, Rickie Lee Jones, became recluses. My goal was to be here 60 years, and the (show) gave me the opportunity to still be home with my son.”Jewel won the sixth season of the Fox celebrity singing competition in December and promptly released an EP of the songs she covered while contending, including Katy Perry’s “Firework,” Edith Piaf’s “La Vie En Rose” and Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.”“I really fell in love with it all. I got to design the costume based on art I was doing, I got to sing and do the arrangements. I got very invested in the process.”On Friday, Jewel unveils “Freewheelin’ Woman,” her first new album in seven years – a break that was also spurred by her need to dedicate her time to raising Kase, her 10-year-old son with ex-husband Ty Murray. The dozen new songs produced by Butch Walker (Taylor Swift, Green Day, Keith Urban) flit from the ‘80s pop/R&B of “Alibis” (“This one was just a free pass to have fun,” Jewel says) to the painfully raw “Almost” (“It was hard to sing in the studio because it’s so emotional”) to the Memphis soul-driven “Love Wins” (“Ella Fitzgerald taught me how to sing and mimic her agility and control, but I also wanted a whole Tina Turner vibe”). The album follows 2015’s “Picking Up the Pieces,” a sort of bookend to her 1995 breakthrough, “Pieces of You.” That’s when soft-spoken Jewel Kilcher arrived on radio with the contemplative “Who Will Save Your Soul” and “You Were Meant for Me,” armed with her riveting story of a hardscrabble upbringing in Alaska – where she also learned her admirable yodeling skills – and living in her car while playing California coffeehouses. Through the decades, Jewel is still usually classified as an acoustic-based folk-pop singer. But that pigeonholing overlooks the fact that many of her biggest hits – “Standing Still,” “Intuition” – have been powered by a pulsing backbeat. On “Freewheelin’ Woman,” which she’s releasing on her Words Matter Media label, Jewel again turns to a perky backbeat with “Dance, Sing, Laugh, Love,” a song that vibrates with unfettered joy.“It’s hard to write pop songs that aren’t romantic,” Jewel says. “I was proud of ‘Intuition’ for that – it delivered a deeper concept wrapped in a pop song. Dancing and singing are my keys to life.


All data is taken from the source: http://usatoday.com
Article Link: https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2022/04/15/jewel-talks-masked-singer-win-new-album-freewheelin-woman/7310373001/


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