toledoblade.com --

What’s a guitar-strumming folk singer like Jewel doing with an album of dance music?

The singer-songwriter from Homer, Alaska, who returns to the Toledo Zoo Amphitheater tomorrow night for a solo acoustic concert, believes the essence of the music on her latest disc, “0304,” is not much different than her previous four folk albums.

“I think folk music to a large extent has been heard so much in a certain way, you assume so much about it and don’t hear the nuances,” Jewel said in an interview from her ranch in Texas. “I wanted to put folk music to a neo-modern setting so the lyric can hit you in a different way.”

The key to Jewel Kilcher’s music has always been smart, insightful lyrics and sweeping melodies, and those same elements are evident in “0304.” But the added rhythms and booming beats she used to create a dance-club sound provided the songwriter with more audio tools than she normally uses in a traditional folk format.

“On the song ‘Run 2 U,’ I gave it that dance beat to give you that feeling of having to run,” she said. “And on ‘Haunted,’ it’s a song about being haunted by your own thoughts, your own demons, so I gave a steady beat like you’re being stalked by your thoughts.”

And while Jewel and her co-producer Lester A. Mendez, whose previous credits include recordings by Shakira, Santana, and Enrique Iglesias, created the most complex studio recording of her career, Jewel said the songs are easily transferred to a solo acoustic show like the one she is doing in Toledo.

“They’re all real songs, they’re not just beats that repeat over and over. They work as well as every other song I've done," she said.

Jewel, who played the Toledo Zoo in 1997 and 2002, grew up in a musical family on a rustic homestead near Homer, Alaska, and spent her junior and senior years of high school studying at the Interlochen Fine Arts Academy in northern Michigan on a vocal scholarship.

She moved to San Diego and lived in her van, surfing and writing poetry and songs and performing folk music at coffee shops. The thought of working a 9-to-5 job scared her, she said, to the point where she was determined to write songs and perform them regardless of commercial success.

Her breakthrough disc, "Pieces of You," was released in February, 1995, but didn't make the charts until April, 1996. And after that, it was a fast climb to stardom.

The album went on to sell more than 11 million copies and produce such hit singles as "Who Will Save Your Soul" and "Foolish Games."

Her 1998 disc, "Spirit," sold 6 million copies worldwide and yielded the hits "Hands," "Jupiter (Swallow the Moon)," and "Down So Long." Her next disc, "This Way," was released in November, 2001, and has sold 1.5 million copies.

Jewel also released a holiday album, "Joy: A Holiday Collection," in 1999 and has published two books, a poetry collection, A Night Without Armor, and an intimate chronicle of life on the road, Chasing Down the Dawn. She made her acting debut in 1999 in Ang Lee's Civil War movie, Ride With the Devil.

Just as her creative interests are broad, so are Jewel's musical influences.

"I've always been really interested in all kinds of music," she said. "I loved hip-hop and rap when I was first exposed to it in the '80s. I love the beats and I loved the artists who had the ability to be very lyrical with those beats. I also like the hypnotic nature of dance music. There is something primordial about it."

Although she takes her lyrics and her songwriting seriously, Jewel doesn't want to overlook one of the key elements of music: having fun. She said that the primary goal of "0304" was to help people forget their problems for a while and just dance.

"I'm offering it as a sort of intelligent escapism," she said.

Another new adventure for Jewel is her participation in a recording project called "Instant Live," which makes a live recording of her concert and then sells copies on CD immediately after the show. Jewel is the first major-label artist to offer the live discs, which are ready for sale within minutes after the show's finale.

"It's a precedent-setting thing. But I'm built for that. I'm best live, and I don't have a band on this tour, so for me it's perfect. I've never done the same show twice. I do something different every night. Fans get to walk away with a memory of the concert."

Is this a way of beating the bootleggers at their own game? Jewel doesn't see it that way.

"I think bootlegging has helped my career tremendously," she said. "A lot of my songs would never have been heard if they hadn't been bootlegged."

She said she is working on her next Atlantic album in between tours and is sorting through a lifetime of material for the next disc.

"I started writing when I was 17 or 18, and I just turned 30," Jewel said, estimating that she has about 400 songs to choose from.

Opening for Jewel will be Joe Firstman, a 23-year-old singer-songwriter from Charlotte, N.C., who recently released his first full-length CD, "The War of Women," on the Atlantic label.

Jewel will be in concert at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at the Toledo Zoo Amphitheater, with Joe Firstman opening. Tickets are $28.50 and $38.50 from Ticketmaster. Information: 419-698-4545.

Contact David Yonke at: dyonke@theblade.com or 419-724-6154.

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