{"id":28127,"date":"2024-09-17T05:30:25","date_gmt":"2024-09-17T09:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=28127"},"modified":"2024-09-18T09:56:12","modified_gmt":"2024-09-18T13:56:12","slug":"jewels-journey-to-now-part-2-of-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/17\/jewels-journey-to-now-part-2-of-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Jewel’s Journey to Now (Part 2 of 4)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n

The way it\u2019s often told, the circumstances of your \u201cdiscovery\u201d some years ago are kind of a fairy tale story\u2026<\/b><\/p>\n

That was a very intense and interesting time in my life. I think the whole world knew I [had been] homeless. I talked about why I was homeless, but at the time, it just never got picked up. Nobody [thought] it was interesting. I was asked to have sex with a boss, and when I refused, he wouldn\u2019t give me my paycheck. I ended up living in my car, and then my car got stolen. But the stories that came out at the time were like, \u201cThat lucky girl, she lived in a car to chase her dreams!\u201d That was the story over and over. I was like, \u201cWhat!?\u201d And it really wasn\u2019t until the #metoo movement happened that anybody even went, \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n

I found that fascinating at the time. I found it fascinating in the \u201890s how the culture was just not geared towards women in this business. And that whole story was somehow missed; it was not<\/i> a fairytale moment. That was really awful. But it ended up being the \u201cbest worst time\u201d of my life, because it forced me to develop tools to handle my panic attacks, to get a grip on my shoplifting, to get a grip on my agoraphobia, all so that I didn\u2019t die.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And I thought, \u201cYou know what? I grew up bars, singing. Maybe I can get a gig in a bar.\u201d But nowhere would pay me to sing. Every coffee shop and taco stand thought it was a \u201csigning venue,\u201d and they would charge musicians to play there. I was like, \u201cPay to play? It\u2019s not what I am. I am not trying to get signed. I am trying to get [money to pay] rent.\u201d<\/p>\n

So I found a little coffee shop that was [in danger of] going out of business, and I said, \u201cWould you give me a month? And if I can bring people in, would you give me all the door money and you keep all the [money from selling] coffee and the food?\u201d And she agreed; we shook hands. The first Thursday, there were two people. The second Thursday there were six people. The next Thursday there were 20. And by the end of that month, I bet there were 25, 30 people. Small, but we saw some momentum, and Nancy, the coffee shop owner, could keep her lights on.<\/p>\n

And by the end of the year, it was standing room only. Two shows a night, and I was doing five hour shows. There were people standing in the rain watching me sing through a window. And I knew something special was happening. I didn\u2019t know that would lead to a record label, but I knew I learned to be honest in my music, and I learned that honesty mattered. And I felt less alone when labels started coming. It was like being Cinderella. It was Sony Records and then Atlantic and then RCA and then Columbia, and then a huge bidding war. I was offered a million dollar signing bonus. But I grew up on a ranch; nobody gives you a single thing for free.<\/p>\n

At that point, you did some of your own homework, didn\u2019t you?<\/b><\/p>\n

I went to the public library, and I got a book, All You Need to Know About the Music Business<\/i> by Don Passman. It taught me about contracts, taught me the math, and I was able to see that I would make pennies per album. How many albums would I have to sell to recoup that million dollar advance? And it was astronomical. And when I asked myself what I really wanted, I wanted a career<\/i>. I didn\u2019t want a million dollars. And I realized the million dollars was like putting a bounty on my first album. It put so much pressure on that album to be successful, and I hadn\u2019t even made it yet. Going back to agriculture, you just shouldn\u2019t try to sell a crop before you have<\/i> a crop.<\/p>\n

So I turned it down. I bought myself creative freedom to make what I wanted, which was a folk album. And I knew the odds of that doing well at the height of grunge were very slim.<\/p>\n

So it was with not wanting to be famous that I began to make decisions that I hoped supported those goals and turned down huge opportunities on the front end, like being on that reality show, Big Brother<\/i>. I would have gone from homeless to living in the house, making the album on TV. By the time I launched the album, I would have been world famous. But I turned it down, and my label was like, \u201cCome again?\u201d<\/p>\n

And then my album failed for two full years, and I was like, \u201cWhoa, maybe I should have taken the money. Maybe I should have done the TV show.\u201d But that\u2019s when Bob Dylan asked me to tour with him. He believed in me, and I thought, \u201cYou know what? If Bob\u2019s the only one that likes me, we\u2019re good.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Bob toured with me, he was like, \u201cF radio, F being famous. Are you a singer-songwriter or are you not? It\u2019s a calling. You may never be famous. You may never do well; we don\u2019t know, right? But you either are this<\/i> or you aren\u2019t. I think you are, and I think you should stay solo \u2013 no band \u2013 and just keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so I did. And then Neil Young took me out [on tour], and he had a very similar attitude of, \u201cYou\u2019re a singer-songwriter; come to terms with it.\u201d That really gave me the courage to keep going. And then the album went well.<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a>\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One… The way it\u2019s often told, the circumstances of your \u201cdiscovery\u201d some years ago are kind of a fairy tale story\u2026 That was a very intense and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28142,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,30,41,51],"tags":[3863],"class_list":["post-28127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-country","category-folk","category-interview","category-pop","tag-jewel","cat-20-id","cat-30-id","cat-41-id","cat-51-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28127"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28193,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28127\/revisions\/28193"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}