Melissa Etheridge & Jewel - Melissa Etheridge X Jewel (2024)

Melissa Etheridge:
An unrepentant believer in the power of classic rock and R&B, Melissa Etheridge has managed to keep her traditionalism vital decades after the release of her eponymous debut in 1988. With a raspy delivery that recalled prime Rod Stewart and faith in the restorative power of rock learned from Bruce Springsteen, Etheridge distinguishes her lean, straight-ahead heartland rock with emotionally direct songwriting. She sharpened this skill on Melissa Etheridge, Brave and Crazy, and Never Enough, records from the early '90s that generated such rock radio hits as "Bring Me Some Water," "Similar Features," "No Souvenirs," and "Ain't It Heavy," the latter winning Etheridge her first Grammy. Early in 1993, Etheridge became one of the first prominent rockers to come out publicly as a lesbian, an event that raised her public profile, helping her fourth album Yes I Am to become a multi-platinum blockbuster, spinning off the hits "I'm the Only One" and "Come to My Window." From that point forward, Etheridge was a roots rock institution, recording and working steadily, occasionally re-entering the spotlight -- she won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "I Need to Wake Up" in 2007 -- while taking pains to stretch herself creatively, as when she dedicated herself to R&B on 2016's Memphis Rock and Soul, while also committing herself to activism: her 2024 docuseries I'm Not Broken focused on imprisoned women suffering from addiction.
Born May 29, 1961, in Leavenworth, Kansas, Etheridge first picked up the guitar at the age of eight and began penning her own songs shortly thereafter. Playing in local bands throughout her teens, Etheridge then attended the renowned Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. The up-and-coming singer/songwriter and guitarist dropped out after a year before making her way to Los Angeles in the early '80s to take a shot at a career in music. At this point, Etheridge's music was slightly more bluesy than her subsequently renowned folk-pop style, as a demo of original compositions caught the attention of Bill Leopold, who signed on as Etheridge's manager. Soon after, steady gigs began coming her way, including a five-night-a-week residency at the Executive Suite in Long Beach, which led to a bidding war between such major record labels as A&M, Capitol, EMI, and Warner Bros., but it was Island Records that Etheridge decided to go with.
Etheridge's first recorded work appeared on the forgotten soundtrack to the Nick Nolte prison movie Weeds before her self-titled debut was issued in 1988. The album quickly drew comparisons to such heavyweights as Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp, as it spawned the hit single "Bring Me Some Water" and earned gold certification. In the wake of the album's success, Etheridge performed at the Grammy Awards the following year and contributed vocals to Don Henley's The End of the Innocence. She managed to avoid the dreaded sophomore slump with 1989's Brave and Crazy, which followed the same musical formula as its predecessor and proved to be another gold-certified success. It would be nearly three years before Etheridge's next studio album appeared, however, and 1992 signaled the arrival of Never Enough, which proved to be more musically varied.
But it was Etheridge's fourth release that would prove to be her massive commercial breakthrough. Ex-Police producer Hugh Padgham guided the album, which spawned two major MTV/radio hits with "I'm the Only One" and "Come to My Window" (the latter of which featured a video with actress Juliette Lewis); the album would sell a staggering six million copies in the U.S. during a single-year period and earned a 1995 Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocalist. But subsequent releases failed to match the success of Yes I Am, including 1995's Your Little Secret, 1999's Breakdown, and 2001's Skin, the latter of which dealt with her separation from Julie Cypher. (Cypher gave birth to the couple's two children via artificial insemination; CSN&Y's David Crosby was the father.)
Etheridge's autobiography, The Truth Is: My Life in Love and Music, was released in 2002, and 2004's Lucky was her celebration of a new romance. Later that same year Etheridge revealed that she'd been diagnosed with breast cancer. But early detection allowed for recovery, and she gave strength to many of those stricken by the disease with a powerful performance of Janis Joplin's "Piece of My Heart" at the 47th annual Grammys in February 2005. That September, Etheridge released Greatest Hits: The Road Less Traveled, a compilation of career highlights and new material. It featured a cover of Tom Petty's "Refugee" as well as "Piece of My Heart" and a new song dedicated to breast cancer survivors. In 2007, Etheridge released her first studio album of new material in three years, The Awakening, on Island, following it a year later with a holiday album, A New Thought for Christmas, also on Island. Fearless Love appeared early in 2010. Her 12th studio album, 4th Street Feeling (named for the main drag in her hometown of Leavenworth, Kansas) was released in 2012; it marked the first occasion in her career when Etheridge played all the guitar parts on one of her recordings. Two years later, she went independent with her 13th album, This Is M.E., an ambitious collection that saw her collaborating with several different producers including R&B specialists Roccstar and Jon Levine; the album debuted at 21 on Billboard's Top 200. Two years later, Etheridge switched to Concord's revived Stax imprint to pay tribute to classic '60s soul on Memphis Rock and Soul; the record debuted at 34 on Billboard's Top 200.
Etheridge designed her 2019 album The Medicine Show as a restorative, healing record. It was released on her M.E. Records imprint in April 2019. She released One Way Out, a collection of unreleased songs written in the late 1980s and early 1990s, in 2021. In October 2022, Etheridge launched My Window -- A Journey Through Life, a limited-run solo Broadway musical; the production was accompanied by the release of an EP, Melissa Etheridge on Broadway.
Etheridge returned in 2024 with I'm Not Broken, a docuseries exploring the singer's work with incarcerated women that was soundtracked by the album I'm Not Broken: Live from Topeka Correctional Facility.

Jewel:
As a story, Jewel's origin is impossible to beat: on her way up, the singer/songwriter lived in a van on the West Coast, struggling to find an entrance to a career as a professional musician. This hardscrabble tale, only enhanced by her Alaskan upbringing, stood in direct contrast to the sweet, gentle hits "Who Will Save Your Soul," "You Were Meant for Me," and "Foolish Games" from her 1995 debut album, Pieces of You, songs that never suggested a tough background. Jewel could tap into her blue-collar beginnings as often as she relied on her sensitive side, a skill she transferred to a number of settings, including books of poetry, acting and reality TV, collections of holiday and children's songs, a glitzy pop makeover, and an earnest few years as a country singer. Although her run on the Billboard singles charts came to a close in the last years of the 2000s, Jewel never stopped working, touring steadily and appearing regularly on television, appearing on Nashville Star, Dancing with the Stars, and The Voice before triumphing as the winning contestant on the sixth season of The Masked Singer in 2021. Her success set the stage for 2022's Freewheelin' Woman, the liveliest pop album she's made in years.
Jewel Kilcher is a native of Homer, Alaska, where her family relocated after her 1974 birth in Payson, Utah. Jewel began singing at an early age, performing at tourist attractions in Homer, and after her parents' divorce, she stayed with her father, performing with him as he toured the country. As a teenager, she attended Interlochen Fine Arts Academy in Michigan, which is where she made her first stabs at songwriting. Once she graduated Interlochen, she moved to San Diego to be with her mother, and after working for a while, she decided to pursue music as a career. She ditched creature comforts and moved into her van, attempting to get gigs wherever she could, eventually landing a regular spot at the Inner Change coffeehouse in Pacific Beach. She soon built up a loyal following, which translated to a contract with Atlantic Records and its release of the live-sounding Pieces of You in early 1995.
Pieces of You was not an immediate hit, but Jewel and Atlantic worked it steadily, with the singer/songwriter touring the country and the label releasing single versions that eventually caught hold over a year after the album's release, beginning with "Who Will Save Your Soul." "You Were Meant for Me" and "Foolish Games" followed over the course of 1996, helping send Pieces of You to an astonishing 12-times-platinum level, making it one of the best-selling debuts of all time. Its success allowed Jewel to pursue whatever she wanted, beginning with Night Without Armor, a collection of her poetry. This was a rest stop on the way to her sophomore set, Spirit, a string-heavy sentimental record. Although not the sales triumph of Pieces of You, it still reached the U.S. Top Three and achieved multi-platinum status.
Jewel followed Spirit with the seasonal Joy: A Holiday Collection for Christmas 1999, while Chasing Down the Dawn -- a spoken word album featuring unabridged selections from the book of the same name -- appeared in the fall of 2000. This Way arrived one year later and featured such stand-out singles as "Standing Still"; it also hinted at Jewel's growing fondness for dance music, as a remixed version of "Serve the Ego" wound up topping the American dance/club charts in 2002. Even so, fans and critics were shocked when the singer's next release, 0304, turned out to be a slick dance-pop album (it became her highest-charting, at number two). Just as unexpected was Jewel's decision to allow a leading razor brand to use her album's hit single, "Intuition," for an advertising campaign.
Her new image didn't last long, however, and Goodbye Alice in Wonderland -- released in May 2006 -- marked a return to the warm sound of the singer's earlier work. Although it debuted in the Billboard Top Ten, the album failed to go platinum or gold, and marked the end of Jewel's association with Atlantic Records. Working with producer John Rich of Big & Rich, Jewel subsequently refashioned herself as a country singer for 2008's Perfectly Clear, which debuted atop the country albums charts. It was followed in 2010 by the similarly successful (and dutifully countrified) Sweet & Wild.
Jewel released a children's album, The Merry Goes 'Round, the following year through the Fisher-Price label. A greatest-hits album came out in 2012, followed by another Christmas album in 2013 (Let It Snow: A Holiday Collection), but Jewel's most prominent placement in pop culture came as a judge on the televised competition The Sing-Off in 2013. In 2015, she returned with Picking Up the Pieces, an album that recalled her folky beginnings and was accompanied by the release of Never Broken: Songs Are Only Half the Story, her second autobiography.
Over the next five years, Jewel busied herself with film and television, appearing as home renovation expert Shannon Hughes in a trio of Hallmark Channel movies called The Fixer Upper Mysteries (2017-2018). Another notable project was Lost in America, a 2018 documentary on homelessness, which featured her song "No More Tears" as its theme. Jewel re-entered the mainstream spotlight in 2021, when she was the Queen of Hearts on the sixth season of the televised singing competition The Masked Singer. That December, she took home the crown and issued the companion covers EP Queen of Hearts.
Not long after her win on The Masked Singer, Jewel released Freewheelin' Woman, a vibrant, soulful album produced by Butch Walker that was heavily inspired by the R&B groove of Muscle Shoals. Freewheelin' Woman featured a new version of "No More Tears" sung as a duet with Darius Rucker; Train's Pat Monahan also appeared on the record, singing with Jewel on "Dancing Slow." It reached the Top 100 of the Billboard 200.