On Tuesday, Jewel and Melissa Etheridge announced they’re going on a North American co-headlining tour throughout summer and fall 2024.
The ‘90s icons will embark on two legs of their joint tour, with the first stint of live dates kicking off on July 11 in Bonner, Montana. The “You Were Meant for Me” singer, 49, and the “Come to My Window” musician, 62, will play along the West Coast, with stops in major cities like San Diego, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and others, before performing a few shows in the Midwest and wrapping up the initial leg on Aug. 7.
According to a press release, fans can expect Jewel to play a setlist featuring songs from her recent 2022 album Freewheelin' Woman and hits from throughout her discography, like off her breakout, debut album Pieces of You.
Etheridge will set out on the joint tour following her own headlining dates on the I’m Not Broken Tour. The Grammy winner’s solo tour will run throughout North America in the spring from March until late April, and then she’ll play a handful of shows in Australia in May, as well as a special performance with The Avett Brothers at Denver's Red Rocks Amphitheater in early July.
The Alaska native had grown up in a small town where community and connection were more important than wealth and power, and as she busked on the streets to pay her train fare to the next destination, she began to experience the urban experience in places like Chicago that she had not encountered before.
“I thought I’d hobo by train across the country to San Diego, and I’d hitchhike from Tijuana to Cabo and then take a ferry to the mainland side of Mexico,” Jewel recalled to Stern. “I got on a Greyhound from Traverse City to Detroit. I stepped into the night in the Detroit city bus station, so that’s a miracle in itself. Then got on a train and I made it to Chicago.
“That was my first stop, and my plan was to street-sing, except I didn’t know anybody’s music. I had just learned chords—A-minor, C, G, and D—and I just started making up lyrics. My dad had taught me to improvise as a kid and just improvise about what was happening. So I’d made up lyrics about people walking by. It’s my first time in a city, my first time seeing skyscrapers, my first time seeing pop culture … I come from a rural community that’s very grounded, very down to earth, and there wasn’t this worship of television and things and wanting to be other people.”
According to Jewel, even her mythical origin story — that she lived in her car to pursue music — was mired in the misogyny and sexual harassment that plagued her early years.(Rolling Stone)
You’re supposed to pretend you’re not middle-aged, you’re supposed to pretend like you’re a sex kitten forever, and I thought that that’s really distasteful.”
Speaking to Stereogum, Jewel went into more detail regarding the situation and the overall harassment she faced from male journalists in the Nineties.
“My whole career, the slant that the media gave it was through a really, I dare say, patriarchal lens,” Jewel said. “You think of my origin story, right? The whole world knows I lived in my car. They think because I was fighting for my dream of music. That is an absolute misrepresentation of what happened. I was living in my car because I wouldn’t have sex with my boss. I refused to be leveraged and he wouldn’t give me my paycheck and I couldn’t pay my rent and I started living in my car and then my car got stolen and I was homeless because of that, because I wouldn’t bang a boss.”
At the moment, Jewel is preparing to release, Freewheelin’ Woman — her first album in seven years and 13th overall. It’s produced by Butch Walker and finds Jewel leaning more into her vocal capabilities as opposed to songwriting and lyrics being the primary focus. Jewel also wanted the album to reflect her role as a single mom (she shares a son, Kase Townes Murray, with ex Ty Murray)
To read the full interview click on Stereogum,
Read also Kurt Loder apologises to Jewel over infamous MTV interview on NME
