Discovering a Jewel in the Rough

Among the traits likely to endear 21-year-old Jewel Kilcher to fans of folk-based pop music are her striking, chameleonic voice; her unfettered and unforced emotionalism; and her heartening and touching streak of youthful idealism.

Another reason to like Jewel, who bills herself on a first-name-only basis, is that she was raised in a log cabin in Alaska. No hot running water, no indoor plumbing, and a family credo that put art--which was abundant in the Kilcher household--above money, of which there was very little.

Given that background, and her thoughtful way of looking at the world, it’s hard to imagine Jewel turning into a spoiled, roots-denying denizen of the pop overclass, should her career arc continue its current upward sweep.

Jewel, who plays Wednesday at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, laughed when it was suggested that her life nowadays as a hard-touring hotel dweller must seem positively cushy compared to the cabin that her Swiss-immigrant grandfather built, or the 1979 Volkswagen van that was her address two years ago when record company scouts began buzzing around the coffeehouse in San Diego where she found her first following.

“The real contrast is that I’m allowed to have some pride,” she said from a tour stop in Seattle, focusing on the inner value of her improved circumstances, rather than the outward benefits.

“A lot of things disembowel the human spirit [when you’re poor]. You have to compromise your pride because you have food stamps, or have to borrow $5 for gas. It’s very humiliating. Now I eat every day, I don’t have to beg from people to get by. It’s a real luxury.”

While her year-old debut album, “Pieces of You,” hasn’t made the Billboard Top 200chart, pieces of a foundation for mass-audience success have been falling into place.

* Lately, Jewel has become a staple on VH-1, trading songs with Melissa Etheridge in Etheridge’s “Duets” concert special.

* Sean Penn saw Jewel on Conan O’Brien’s show and commissioned her to write a song for his film “The Crossing Guard.” Penn directed Jewel’s new video for the fetching, wistful romantic ballad “You Were Meant for Me.”

* Jewel has opened as a solo acoustic act for a varied roster of estimable headliners including Bob Dylan, John Hiatt, Liz Phair and Belly. Still performing solo, she has moved up to co-headliner status opposite her label-mate, singer-songwriter Edwin McCain.

* The barefoot, jeans-clad farm girl one meets by paging through Jewel’s CD booklet has lately been shod in famous ruby slippers: Last November, Jewel played Dorothy at New York’s Lincoln Center in a nationally televised benefit production of “The Wizard of Oz” opposite Scarecrow Jackson Browne, Tin Man Roger Daltrey, Good Witch Natalie Cole, Wicked Witch Debra Winger and Wizard Joel Grey. Clearly, she wasn’t in Homer, Alaska, any more.

Jewel’s parents, Atz and Nedra Kilcher, made their sparse living as a singing team, and Jewel debuted with the family act at age 6--specializing as a yodeler. From 8 to 16, after her folks had divorced, she was part of a father-and-daughter duo, and the show came to revolve increasingly around her.

“All the bar singing with my dad really paid off,” Jewel said. “I realized during the last year how much discipline my father gave me. We practiced five hours a day, and if I pouted because there were only three people [at a show] listening, I’d get thrown off the stage.”

A lot of Alaskans must have listened and liked what they heard: When Jewel was 16, people from her hometown helped raise $11,000 so she could attend Interlochen Fine Arts Academy in Michigan.

She studied opera performance and sculpture at the private school but also began to play folk guitar and write songs. After graduation, she spent time wandering around Colorado and Mexico, figuring out what to do next. She and her mother vacationed together in San Diego and decided to stay. Jewel took a series of day jobs there and developed an artistically helpful if economically risky loathing for the workaday world.

“I worked enough bad, crappy jobs where I thought, ‘Wow, I could die [doing] this, be 40 and never have filled my life with passion.’ ” That fear led her to quit working to pay rent, move into her van and find the weekly coffeehouse gig that led to her discovery.

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Working with producer Ben Keith, best known as the steel guitarist in Neil Young’s country-flavored Stray Gators lineup, Jewel kept her album’s arrangements sparse and focused on her voice and lyrics. Four songs were recorded live and solo at the Innerchange, her home club in San Diego.

Jewel’s subject matter is wide-ranging. Some songs delve into the extreme vulnerability and scary loss of self that can come with being in love. The aching “You Were Meant for Me” and the infatuated “Morning Song” showcase an ability to skirt cliche and bring emotional moments alive with well-chosen lyrical details drawn from daily life.

She also looks to the outer world, decrying bigotry and blind materialism on “Who Will Save Your Soul”; lamenting a lost, drug-addicted soul on “Little Sister”; and showing a cruel streak in “Daddy,” an estranged daughter’s hate-letter to papa that she says is most definitely not autobiographical.

Her idealism, tempered by a sense of life’s great capacity for sadness, comes out in songs such as “Painters,” a loving ode to a life lived with creativity as its goal and guiding principle.

A philosophy student from her high school days, she cites no less an authority than Plato as a source for the ideals expressed in “Painters.”

“When I read Plato’s ‘Symposium,’ it was suggested that we could reach immortality through love and beauty. There’s a certain liberation in knowing that.”

With career momentum building, Jewel plans to stay on the road, even though she estimates she has already done 300 shows over the past year. She wants to take a break in March to record another album: “It will be more playful. I’ve been writing big band, Western songs, funny material. It’s more diversified.”

Last month, the hard work of making a name for herself found Jewel visiting 42 cities in 30 days. She kept up a touring itinerary opening for Peter Murphy, a full-time job in itself, and branched off to play on her own at radio stations, coffee shops, even high schools.

As her circumstances broaden, she says, she cherishes her log cabin origins and the simplicity of her childhood.

“When I shut my eyes, I know it’s who I am, who I’m supposed to be.”

But the chance for an ongoing adventure in Oz beckons, and though she still likes to visit the family homestead, she figures there’s no place, right now, like the spotlight.

“I want this more than anything. I feel so blessed to be doing this. Some people go their whole lives doing the mundane. I get a shot to live my dream. Not [a dream of] fame and fortune, but of [satisfying] my heart, my desire, my passion. At least if it doesn’t work, I’ll know I put every fiber of my being in it.”

* Jewel and Edwin McCain play Wednesday at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. 8 p.m. $13.50-$15.50. (714) 496-8930.