Music Missionary

Glamour Magazine
December, 1999

Thanks to Scott Evans for typing this up.
Let Me Fly

"She's funneling 40 percent of her total income to help the needy." Singer. Songwriter. Actress. It's hard to imagine a multi-faceted creative force (at all of age 25) finding energy for more. Jewel does--flush from the success of her four million-selling sophomore CD, Spirit, and fresh off her acting debut as a Civil War bride in Ang Lee's Ride With the Devil. Last January, Jewel and her mother, Nedra, launched Higher Ground For Humanity (HGH) to fund health clinics and safe drinking water projects in Third World countries. "To have something to work for...that's a great thing," says Jewel, who donates 30 percent of her income to HGH. Her generosity may spring from her hardscrabble youth. Raised on an 800-acre Alaskan homestead, she struggled with kidney problems, dyslexia and her parents' divorce. At 18, Jewel lived in a VW bus in San Diego, subsisting on peanut butter and songwriting, when Atlantic Records scouts caught her gig at a local coffeehouse. By 1995, she had a debut CD (Pieces of You), which has sold 11 million copies. Then in 1998 came her first book (remarkably, it became a best-seller), revealing yet another facet: Jewel as poet.