Jewel writes songs of innocence

                  By Steve Morse, Globe Staff, 11/15/98


It's a big leap from living in your van as a teenager to being the moral
conscience of your generation. Yet that's the path being carved by the
quietly ambitious, unashamedly idealistic Jewel; the Alaskan-born
singer-songwriter whose debut album sold 8 million copies and made her an
icon to wandering youth.

Jewel wrote that debut, ''Pieces of You,'' as a 19-year-old who had moved
from Alaska to an itinerant life in San Diego. The album produced three huge
hit singles: ''You Were Meant for Me,'' ''Who Will Save Your Soul,'' and
''Foolish Games.''

Now 24, Jewel returns Tuesday with ''Spirit,'' a softly understated,
beguilingly beautiful folk record that blends an ecumenical spirituality with a
timeless innocence that makes you wonder how the marketplace will react to
it. Jewel's vulnerabilities are revealed, but so are her strengths and
commitments to the love, grace, and peace ethic.

A focal track is ''Innocence Maintained,'' in which Jewel intones: ''We've
made houses for hatred/It's time we made a place where people's souls may
be seen and made safe/Be careful with each other ... for innocence can't be
lost, it just needs to be maintained.''

In many hands, Jewel's moralizing might seem corny, but she invests this
song and others with a stunning calm. As she told Billboard, ''I wanted to
write a record that was an antidote to all the things that made me worry in
the world, so that it's comforting somehow.''

She succeeded, for the new record goes right to the heart. ''We've
compromised our pride and sacrificed our health/We have to demand more
not of each other/But more from ourselves,'' she sings in the opening tune,
'Deep Water.''

Radio singles may be few and far between this time, though ''Hands'' is working
its way up the charts with the life-affirming thought: ''In the end only
kindness matters ... We are God's eyes, God's hands, God's mind.'' This may not
make the album go ka-ching at the cash registers, but it earns respect.

This album is meant to be listened to as a whole. Gently flowing acoustic
guitar, played by former Bostonian Jude Cole, (who also has a fine new solo
disc out), anchors these fragile, painterly melodies. Other guests include
Ednaswap bassist Paul Bushnell, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea,
Afro-Cuban percussionist Luis Conte, pedal steel guitarist Marty Rifkin, and
drummer Brian Macleod.

Jewel herself only plays guitar on two tracks, preferring to concentrate on
her voice. It has matured and deepened, yet is still capable of a magnificent
falsetto on ''Enter from the East,'' an erotic, cello-limned tune where she
sings, ''I must have you all to myself/Feel the full weight of your skin.'' A
similarly light and airy eroticism turns up on ''Jupiter.''

While Jewel is searching for love, we soon learn it's a love both on the earthy
and the spiritual planes. In the elegiac ''Barcelona,'' with Flea adding a
subtle bass line, she sings, ''I'm afraid I am alone/Won't somebody please hold
me, release me, show me the meaning of mercy.'' Later, in the same song, she
asks, ''God, won't you please hold me, release me?''

Above all, these songs are unerringly pretty. Jewel even adds a protest song
in ''Life Uncommon,'' and that, too, is sung so prettily that you won't want to
rush the barricades after all. Rather, this album makes you want to sit back,
contemplate life, and be glad that an artist as compelling as Jewel is willing
to bare her soul, in spite of a possible backlash against such idealism.

This story ran on page L03 of the Boston Globe on 11/15/98.
Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.