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More beautiful than ever, in a twenty-plus-year-career, Paula Cole releases Ballads, a twenty-song collection of American jazz and folk classics from the 1930s to the 1960s. It is dedicated to her father, Jim Cole.
Cole started as a jazz singer and now returns, at nearly fifty years of age, to pay homage to her first love of jazz and folk. A self-described “mother and human being first,” Cole is a timeless voice not only in song, but for those who have felt pain and who still stand shining light, against all odds. With a voice that is big, rich, and gorgeous, a mind that is intelligent, and a heart that transforms suffering into beauty, Paula Cole sings for our enlightenment, for our souls.
Ballads is a journey to Billie Holiday and Bob Dylan, to John Coltrane and Nina Simone, to Bobbie Gentry and Nancy Wilson, sung by a stunning Paula Cole we have not yet heard. Start pouring the fine wine; some things get better with age.
Cole is the voice behind English rock musician Peter Gabriel’s hits in Secret World Live (“Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” and “I Don’t Want to Wait”) as well as the brave, brazen double platinum album, This Fire. She has infused wit and poetry in seven albums of original work in a career spanning over two decades. In performance, Cole gives of herself to such a degree that she elicits tears and gasps and goose bumps from audiences. In her lyrics, she writes of inner life, redemption, a woman’s perspective, and social justice.
As the first woman in history to solely produce and receive the Best Producer Grammy nomination for her work in This Fire, Cole broke boundaries with a searcher’s spirit. Recently, she celebrated the twentieth anniversary of that album and will be performing This Fire in its entirety at select concerts. She has released a new video of “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” along with a twentieth-anniversary-memento-live album entitled This Bright Red Feeling.
Between tours and albums, Cole is now a professor at her Boston alma mater, Berklee College of Music. She continues to write, produce, record, and perform heartfelt, meaningful, lasting music that defies categorization.
An extraordinary songwriter with a gorgeous voice
—Rolling Stone
A fantastic artist
—Herbie Hancock
Paula is an original voice both in what she is saying and how she is saying it.
—Peter Gabriel