Jewel champions hillbilly culture for music career success

Jewel grew up on a five-acre potato farm – without plumbing or heat – near Homer, Alaska, where the singer learned to yodel from her father. 

The 50-year-old Grammy nominee told AARP for their August/September issue that the traditional singing style “taught me about vocal control and precision.”

She added, “At a gala for my Crystal Bridges [Museum] exhibit in the Ozarks [this year], I sang ‘Over the Rainbow’ and ended with a cappella yodeling. It was full circle – I wanted to honor the region and say, ‘Look what we hillbillies can do!’”

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The mother of one told Fox News Digital in 2016 that yodeling even saved her life once.

“When I would go to the meadows, my dad would yodel so we can come back home,” she explained. “But it did actually save my life in Hawaii once. I was getting beaten up pretty bad there because I was one of the only white kids in a local school. When they found out I could yodel, they stopped beating me up and instead had me yodel every day.”

The singer still yodels in her music, including a song called “Chime Bells,” also known as “The Yodeling Song.”

As a child, Jewel sang and yodeled as a duo with her father near their home, and she told AARP that her whole family is artistic.

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Jewel on tour with her brothers and father in 2017. (Eileen Blass for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

“All my aunts sing and write their own songs and taught themselves how to play instruments,” she told the magazine. “One aunt makes the most gorgeous sculptures. All my cousins play guitar and write music. My grandparents had this very idealistic philosophy of ‘We’re going to leave Europe, and we’re going to make the world a better place.’ It’s how my family is wired.” 

Though she struggled with her relationship with her father, who she has claimed was an abusive alcoholic, the two have since come back together. 

“My father got sober and decided he wanted to heal,” she told AARP. “Healing is hard work; there’s no way to fake it. Changed behavior earns back relationships. We showed up every day for each other. That’s why he and I now have the relationship we do. My mother and I have no relationship.”

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Jewel, who sang as a duo with her father as a child, continues to make music with him. (Bernd Obermann/Corbis via Getty Images)

Her father, Atz Kilche, is one of the stars of Discovery’s Channel’s “Alaska: The Last Frontier,” a reality series about her family. He and Jewel’s mother divorced when she was about 8 years old, and she went to live with him.

The arrangement only lasted until she was 15, which is when she said she moved out on her own.

“I want my life to be my best work of art. I want to try to live thoughtfully and intentionally and sculpt my humanity into something that will please me at the end of my life.”

— Jewel

“I moved out at 15 and got myself through high school,” she recounted. “But then my boss propositioned me. When I turned him down, he wouldn’t give me my paycheck. I couldn’t pay rent. I was, like, ‘Fine. I’ll live in my car.’” 

She continued, “I was shoplifting food, then one day I started to shoplift a dress. I didn’t need it — I just wanted it. I was reduced to being an animal. I had to figure out how to do better.”

Jewel performs on Oct. 12, 1996, in Columbia, S.C. (Paul Natkin/WireImage)

The singer recently accused her mother of embezzling more than $100 million from her. 

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“I didn’t really realize what my mom was until I was 30-something,” she told the “Verywell Mind” podcast last year. “I woke up and realized she embezzled all of my money — over $100 million.”

The singer believes authenticity is a hallmark of beauty. (Chris Haston/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

But Jewel mainly wants to focus on positivity. 

“I want my life to be my best work of art. I want to try to live thoughtfully and intentionally and sculpt my humanity into something that will please me at the end of my life,” she said.

She also feels that authenticity is a hallmark of beauty; she told AARP that she’d never fix her crooked tooth.

Jewel said she wants to live “thoughtfully and intentionally.” (Steve Jennings/WireImage)

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“My definition of beauty changes, but I think I owe it to myself to try to be authentic,” she mused. “I don’t want to say natural beauty is better than unnatural beauty. It’s just in your own life and in your own body, what is authentic to you? We all have to find our way to what makes us feel good.”