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Coffeehouse pop is gentle but not tame--there is a quiescent anger within it over social issues and matters of the heart. The songs seek to engage life, not shrink from it. "There was an innocence that prevailed in the '60s that was crushed by the assassination of J.F.K. and King," says Jewel. "Our parents have become disillusioned. It is their disillusionment we deal with in many ways; it's a kind of crust we have to break through." In the title song on Pieces of You, Jewel attacks religious and sexual intolerance, her voice breaking as she sings, "You say he's a faggot. Are you afraid you're just the same?"; one of Chapman's newest songs is titled The Rape of the World.
But unlike alternative rock, this music is less about stoking cynicism and provoking anger than it is about overcoming both. This is healing music, devoid of irony and flush with optimism and unabashed emotion. "Apathy is boring," says Cole. "It takes real courage to have hope." This is music that wants to feel, no matter how much it hurts. Says Jewel: "People are hungry for emotiveness. They want bare honesty, emotional blood-and-bone honesty."
The Lilith Fair, which kicked off July 5 in George, Wash., and will play 29 more cities in the U.S. and Canada over the next two months, is a coming-out party for the new sound, a chance for this generation of female singer-songwriters to meet and greet each other, jam onstage together, share audiences and, perhaps, start a folk-pop revolution. It should be noted, though, that some of the recent talk about a surge in "women's music" could be seen as a veiled slur. The music women make is too varied for a single category, and the mediagenic notion of some sort of "female sound" could turn into a kind of velvet prison. Women, of course, have been major players in music throughout the rock era, so the idea that gals with guitars is something new is an insult to such folk-pop pioneers as Odetta and Joan Baez. The number of women at the top of the charts of late, however, and the impressive number of those who are playing Lilith is indeed something fresh and invigorating. "Of all the tours that you do during the summer," says Fiona Apple, "this is pretty much the coolest one."
The opening show in George's scenic Gorge Amphitheater was proof of that. It was an intimate extravaganza--with condom giveaways and information booths on issues like rape and reproductive rights--and the performances began with a hush and built to a dreamy sigh. Lilith offers the audience three stages, in separate locations, of gradually descending size and occupied by performers at staggered time intervals. McLachlan was the first act up, playing a spare, unassuming set by herself, holding only her acoustic guitar, on the third and smallest stage, which was about the size of a tollbooth. Cassandra Wilson, on the medium-size second stage later in the day, was the Fair's most disarming delight--her smart, laughing, 30-minute set began with a few dozen people watching but ended with several hundred, who gave her a standing ovation. Jewel, on the first and largest stage, was the high point. On record, her voice sometimes has a tepid blond wispiness; in concert, it has a crackling, sparks-flying, campfire warmth. Finally McLachlan, with her full band, appeared on the first stage to close out the day with a serene set that shimmered like twilight.