Paula Cole
New England native and nationally renowned singer-songwriter Paula Cole started singing around the house even before she began to talk, making up her own nonsensical lyrics as her musician father played blues progressions on the guitar. And she believes every voice is unique. “I’ve just been trying to find my voice all these years,” she says. “Music has always been my first language. Music is the language of all species, from birds to peeping tree frogs. I sang before I spoke, so it’s natural that I am who I am doing what I do.”
Not unlike other singer-songwriter-musicians, Cole grew up in a family among a generation of musicians where music was fun and self-made. That was the initial spark and driving force behind her pursuit of a musical career. According to her, this allowed her to achieve the unfulfilled dreams of many of her family members, especially the women, who never got to achieve their dream or their own voice to which she was very aware.
MUSICAL BEGINNING, BERKLEE, SCAT SINGING
Born on April 5, 1968, Cole was raised in the famously picturesque seaside town of Rockport, Massachusetts, the daughter of an artist/schoolteacher mom and a biology/ecology professor dad who also played bass in a polka band. She graduated from Rockport High School, where she was president of her senior class, and attended Berklee College of Music, where she studied jazz singing and improvisation under jazz scat vocalist Bob Stoloff.
According to Cole, growing up in such a small town was a bit isolating but that boredom, frustration and isolation were exactly what generated a fire under her that eventually spawned a storied – and stellar – career. After a quick listen to Stoloff teaching scat singing, one can appreciate the connection between her vocal origins at home and her studies at Berklee; her being inspired by the style became one of the keys to her success
FIRST RECORDINGS, GRAMMY NOMINATION
Post-Berklee, Cole moved to San Francisco, where she developed song ideas and built a home studio, resulting in her 1997 song “Where Have all the Cowboys Gone,” which went to #8 in the Billboard Hot 100. That track ended up on her second album, This Fire, and was nominated for a Grammy, which Cole doesn’t consider her greatest accomplishment in life. In fact, as she recalls, “That night was laden and confused yet amazing.”
Her first big break arrived about five years before her first hit single, however, when Peter Gabriel invited her to perform on his 1992/93 world tour; that was instrumental in helping her catapult her career into the mainstream. Shortly thereafter, Cole recorded her 1994 debut album, Harbinger, on the indie label Imago. That album featured local guitar genius Kevin Barry and Maine-born session drummer Jay Bellerose, both of whom were fellow Berklee students. Shortly after its release, Imago folded and subsequent promotion for Harbinger was almost non-existent, shattering her original expectations.
“I’M SO ORDINARY,” “HITLER’S BROTHERS”
One poignant, self-reflective and especially noteworthy song from Harbinger is about heartbreak and loss, and Cole delivers it with convincing emotion using just voice and piano. The song, “I Am So Ordinary,” was released as a single. Another noteworthy song from the album is “Hitler’s Brothers.” While not particularly destined for the Billboard Hot 100, Cole manages to hit the current political climate square in the gut with lyrics such as “Hitler’s brothers are on the rise, they’re wearing everyday disguises, in camouflage or business suits, checkered aprons, combat boots.” It was powerful then and even more so nearly 30 years later.
Looking back at her debut disc, Cole says it taught her a lot. “I was depressed, but ultimately learned that it was me and the music and I loved to be in that place,” she says. “I think music keeps us childlike and open to new experiences. I look back at Harbinger and I see the poignancy and I feel its adolescent point of view. The flower has opened, been in the sun, and is unafraid. I’m taking more chances and I’m bold and proud.”
THIS FIRE, “WHERE HAVE ALL THE COWBOYS GONE”
That pride and boldness took shape in a more distinctive form with her next (and first major-label) release, the aptly titled This Fire, which Cole produced herself and included local musicians Kevin Barry and Jay Bellerose along with Brookline native and bassist extraordinaire Tony Levin. The album propelled her into the spotlight driven by “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone,” which looks at marriage from a woman’s perspective along with acerbic wit. Verses are witty and spoken, the pre-choruses are quite stabbing and the chorus is sung with fervor demanding an answer to the main question posed by the song’s title.
According to Cole, she was listening to XTC at the time and appreciated their cleverness and sarcasm, thinking it would be interesting to use those qualities as part of a woman’s point of view in a song. That same year, she scored a second hit from This Fire, “I Don’t Want to Wait,” popularized as the theme to the television hit Dawson’s Creek.
LILITH FAIR PARTICIPATION, AMEN, SEVEN-YEAR HIATUS
Cole’s career also took flight on another venture she participated in between the summers of 1997 to 1999 with Sarah McLachlan and Lisa Loeb called Lilith Fair, a concert and traveling music festival. The fair raised over $10 million for charity, with artists that appeared numbering in the hundreds, but the concept faded away by 2011 as audience views and expectations changed.
Even with all the sudden exposure and a couple hit records, Cole claimed that she didn’t feel famous and that has caused her to look more inward. Her third studio outing, Amen, which dropped in 1999 found her broadening her sound with more hip-hop styled textures but it wasn’t as commercially successful as This Fire. That lack of huge sales, along with more inward soul searching and reflection, caused her to decide to drop out of the musical limelight and focus on raising her daughter. Thus began a seven-year, musically dry period apart from a greatest hits album, Postcards from East Oceanside, released in 2006 and which including two new tunes, “Tomorrow I Will Be Yours” and the title track.
2000S ALBUMS
In 2007, Cole cut her fourth and lowest-selling album, Courage, after which she began touring more regularly before recording her fifth LP, Ithaca, in 2010 for Decca Records. Her next album, 2013’s Raven, was crowdfunded and self-released on her 675 Records label.
Raven represented a turning point in terms of recordings and in 2015 Cole recorded the album 7, a live in-the-studio acoustic session, with her original band members and which she considers her favorite album – enough to re-release it as an LP in opaque white vinyl. I’m very proud of it,” she says. “These are entirely live performance, without any instrumental overdubs. The only overdubs are my vocals, and my requisite Albert Hitchcock appearance, my clarinet.”
In 2016, she recorded a second live album, This Bright Red Feeling, and in 2017 she cut the crowdfunded Jazzy Ballads, a collection of tunes written by others that have influenced her over the years including a moving, hauntingly smooth and sensual version of “Blue Moon,” the Richard Rodgers/Lorenz Hart classic from 1934. That album debuted at #10 in the Billboard Jazz Albums chart. In 2019, she recorded the human-rights driven album entitled Revolution, an acclaimed collection of original tunes.
AMERICAN QUILT
That brings us to her most recent release, American Quilt, another covers album with elements of blues, jazz, rock and country that harkens back to her beginnings and is a “tapestry of songs,” as Cole describes it. “I wanted this album to reflect a patchwork of music from the cities and the mountains, the fields and the rivers from movies to melodies that traversed oceans, centuries, cultures, and continents sewn together with our collective heartstrings,” she says.
As on previous albums, Cole was joined by her longtime family of musicians, including drummer Bellerose and guitarist Barry, collaborators since the trio’s early days at Berklee. “We toured all through the ‘90s together and they’ve been on most of my albums and tours,” Cole says. “They’re truly my family. I wouldn’t be who I am without Jay and Kevin. They’ve given me bravery and heart.”
Cole is hard to pin down in terms of a specific genre, since she’s experimented with a wide range of them during career. But, like abstract painting, there’s no explanation necessary; listen and draw from her work whatever inspiration you may derive and simply enjoy the journey. And here’s hoping that her musical journey continues to expand.
(by Karl Sharicz)
