{"id":13974,"date":"2016-04-16T08:12:57","date_gmt":"2016-04-16T12:12:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=13974"},"modified":"2016-04-16T08:41:17","modified_gmt":"2016-04-16T12:41:17","slug":"jewel-picking-up-the-pieces-tour-with-special-guest-jd-the-straight-shot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=13974","title":{"rendered":"Jewel \u2018Picking Up the Pieces Tour\u2019 with Special Guest JD & The Straight Shot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photos and information by: Michael Hujsa <\/a><\/p>\n

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JD & The Straight Shot<\/strong> <\/a>put the Sand\u2019s Event Center\u2019s <\/a>acoustic sound to the test!\u00a0 Their tour is in support for the band\u2019s 5th album, Ballyhoo!\u00a0 According to the band\u2019s founder, James Dolan, \u201cWe\u2019ve always approached writing songs acoustically, so it made sense to go in that direction. They just sound right this way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their infectious groove will have you toe-tapping in no time!\u00a0 We fell in love with their hit \u201cBetter Find A Church.\u201d<\/p>\n

JD & The Straight Shot have toured alongside The Eagles, The Allman Brothers Band, ZZ Top, and Robert Randolph. Members of the Straight Shot also tour with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Their song “Can’t Make Tears” is the theme song for Cablevision-owned AMC’s TV show Hell on Wheels.<\/p>\n

Jewel \u2018Picking Up the Pieces\u2019<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

According to Jeweljk.com, over the course of the \u2018Picking Up the Pieces\u2019 album, Jewel conveys the emotional turmoil of life during its most difficult and challenging moments, with genuine emotional pain fueling her vocals and reaching a new intensity level with her music in the process.\u00a0 A singer cannot transmit feelings into listeners without tapping into those feelings and this collection of songs provided the opportunity to dig deep into her own experiences.<\/p>\n

Meditations on lost love and broken relationships are prevalent on Picking Up the Pieces, with the potent and poetic \u201cLove Used To Be” and the hopeless despair of “It Doesn’t Hurt Right Now,” a penetrating collaboration with Rodney Crowell that explores the aftermath of an affair. Previously unrecorded live staples from the original Pieces Of You era like “Everything Breaks,” “Here When Gone,” “His Pleasure Is My Pain” and “Carnivore,” which manages to convey heartbreak, hostility and defiance simultaneously, are also among them.\u00a0 Family relationships are also eloquently explored, with the self-examining “Family Tree” and \u201cMy Father\u2019s Daughter\u201d \u2013 a stunning autobiographical collaboration with country legend Dolly Parton.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was trying to keep my mind quiet and honestly get back to something I feel like I\u2019d lost touch with in my life,\u201d she adds of the reflective LP. \u201cIt was really an exercise in shutting out fear. I was giving myself permission to be exactly who and what I was.\u201d<\/p>\n

To be sure, this is an album about self-awareness: namely, the way it affects our evolution, maturation and acceptance. \u201cIt really felt like returning to a part of me that I didn\u2019t mean to lose, but with time and relationships and life and surviving and dealing you take on new things and not all of them are great,\u201d she admits. The recording process for the album, which Jewel describes as a \u201cvery holistic process,\u201d centered on \u201ccarving away things about myself and returning to a sense of myself that I really needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

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