Jewel’s Identity

I read with great interest Robert Hilburn’s review of the recent Jewel concert (“Blond Ambition: A Multifaceted Jewel,” June 28). I especially agree with the identity crisis this unfortunate child is experiencing. Combine this misfortune with an absolute lacuna of poetic ideas and painted with maudlin images and an utter lack of solid musicianship and all you have left is a pretty girl who knows how to groan into a microphone.

I took my 8- and 10-year-old girls, along with my wife, to the performance at Irvine Meadows. It was going to be a family concert experience. Unfortunately, things did not turn out that way.

We were shocked to hear Jewel relate an endless story about a marijuana bust in Mexico that she was involved in along with the toting of high-caliber weapons, which she seemed to joke about. This was really mild compared to the sexually explicit lyrics and lap dancing gestures that sadly distort her heretofore angelic stage presence. This artist has lost her way.

Unhappy that the audience was not listening to her dribbling lyrics, she told us to “shut up” not once but several times in succession. And she showed undeniably poor judgment in asking all of the audience members in the back of the venue to break through the barriers and come down in front. There was a lack of control, security was nonexistent and a riot situation unfolded that was dangerous.

JAMES SITTERLY

Palos Verdes Estates

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I would like to rebut Hilburn’s comment that, “like Jewel, Melanie was a songwriter with impressive vocal skills, but with such a one-dimensional viewpoint that she became a flower-power caricature.”

It is obvious that he knows little or nothing about Melanie, and has not listened to any of her music other than her pop songs of the early ‘70s. Even though Melanie continues to embrace something of a flower-child image, her music, like Jewel’s, has grown up, and is anything but one-dimensional. Hilburn does not have to take my word for it--all he has to do is get her latest CD, “Ring the Living Bell: A Collection,” on Renaissance Records.

PATRICK SWAYNE

Ellenwood, Ga.

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While I don’t agree with Hilburn’s bashing of Jewel, I do agree that “Melanie was a songwriter with impressive vocal skills,” because as a teenager I thought for sure Melanie was singing underwater, and that takes impressive vocal skills.

NICK SHAFFER

Los Angeles

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How dare Hilburn insult Shania Twain in his article about Jewel. He has got some nerve calling Shania a “hollow mega-seller.”

I find it hard to believe that Jewel has half the faithful following that Shania does. Who has proven themselves in the recording world, Jewel or Shania? I think Shania wins this one by a landslide--back-to-back 10-million selling albums.

TERRY LEE

Temple City