Pop Music Review : Jewel Finds Focus After False Start

On her debut album, “Pieces of You,” singer-songwriter Jewel challenges listeners with darkly shaded acoustic material that is lyrically complex and passionately executed in a melancholy sort of way. Even the few musically buoyant tunes are laced with a bittersweet flavor.

So it came as a surprise when Jewel bounded onto the stage at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano on Wednesday with the pep and good humor of a college student heading off to spring break. When she kicked off her solo, acoustic set with “Pieces of You,” it was clear that the effervescent Jewel wasn’t really connecting with the song’s disturbing theme of intolerance and hatred. In fact, she interrupted the number several times to inject inappropriate but humorous observations, including a brief impression of how the Cranberries’ Dolores O’Riordan might sing the song.

But within the context of her entire show, Jewel’s carefree reading of one of her most potent tunes was forgivable, and actually may have made her seem more likable. Soon after, she gained focus and proceeded to transfix her adoring audience.

Like Rickie Lee Jones, Jewel is capable of conveying a wide range of emotions, from girlish vulnerability to steely toughness. By the time the Alaska native closed out the regular portion of her set with a grin-inducing yodeling song (she started yodeling with her singer-songwriter parents when she was 6), Jewel could do no wrong.