With the exception of a handful of songs recorded live at the InnerChange coffeehouse, all the rest were laid down at Neil Young’s studio at Broken Arrow Ranch in Redwood City, California (with Young’s Stray Gators as backing band). Jewel’s rich, breathy, youthful voice is expressive, flexible and beguiling. She presents as a waifish and vulnerable ingénue. A decade younger than Tori Amos and Sheryl Crow, but contemporary with Alanis Morissette, Jewel, like her colleagues, on occasion creates caustic lyrics awash with sarcasm, pushing the music into the darker corners of human experience. For a young woman, then in her mid-to-late teens, to express the depth, intimacy and self-awareness of the very personal experiences cited in her lyrics, is unusual and rare. So bitter and cutting are some of the perceptions that some tunes, such as the title song, cannot be unheard.

Nonetheless, her fans helped propel three songs debuting on the album, "Who will Save Your Soul," "You Were Meant For Me," and "Foolish Games," to hit high on the Billboard Hot 100. I enjoyed the naiveté permeating the tone of this album as much as I recoiled at the indulgence in self-righteousness of this introverted balladeer’s wide-eyed meanderings though life so often fraught with abuse, bigotry and discrimination. There’s no doubting, though, Jewel's sitting comfortably in the same choir beside Tracy Chapman, Fiona Apple, Sheryl Crow, Suzanne Vega, Tori Amos and Alanis Morissette. In addition to her philanthropic activities, Jewel continues to write songs for a future recording. She is also an accomplished, published author/poet and has successfully been accepted in Hollywood as an actor and producer.

Established in 2017, Craft Recordings is the reissue label of Concord Music. Among its holdings are labels familiar to The Audio Beat readers, such as Fantasy, Milestone, Nitro, Prestige, Riverside, Rounder, Specialty, Stax, Sugar Hill, Telarc, Vanguard and VeeJay. Craft strives to release recordings of historical significance and diverse musicality in editions carefully curated and painstakingly produced. To date, close to fifty albums have been released, ranging from the obscure -- Allen Ginsberg Reads Howl and Other Poems -- to the popular -- Issac Hayes’s Shaft. Several deluxe box sets have also made appearances, most notably a half-speed-mastered collection of all seven of Creedence Clearwater Revival's studio albums. Vinyl reissues utilize original analog tapes when possible and receive expert remastering, plating and pressing on heavyweight, quality vinyl. Pieces of You was mastered by Grammy-winning Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering and pressed at Memphis Record Pressing. Close attention is also paid to the packaging of Craft LPs, which, in addition to outstanding printing quality, often includes extra annotations and photos.

The two LPs of Pieces of You, protected by paper sleeves printed with lyrics and credits, per the original release, are housed in a sturdy gatefold jacket duplicating the graphics of Atlantic's first pressing. Inexplicably, the iconic green-and-orange Atlantic label was not used. The sound of these LPs is well above average, marred only in a few instances of groove noise no amount of cleaning could remove. The five songs on side four are bonus tracks not found on the CD release. If you enjoy simple tunes with often not-so-simple lyrics, you’ll want to add this unique album to your collection.