PAULA COLE

Paula Cole drapes her sincere, gently rising melodies across adult-alternative compositions colored by folk traditions. Stardom arrived abruptly and dramatically in 1997, an apparently sudden breakthrough that nonetheless rested on earlier groundwork and continued to resonate. This Fire, her sophomore release, appeared shortly before Sarah McLachlan introduced the inaugural Lilith Fair, on whose main stage Cole performed. Her reflective single “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone” soon entered the Billboard Top Ten, while “I Don't Want to Wait” reached number 11 and later served as the signature theme for Dawson’s Creek. The momentum earned Cole the Grammy for Best New Artist in 1998, yet viewing her trajectory solely through This Fire overlooks the exploratory impulses that recur throughout her catalog. Those impulses surfaced clearly in the early 1990s when she substituted for Sinéad O’Connor on Peter Gabriel’s Real World tour, and again on 1999’s Amen, an album that deliberately departed from the lush, immersive textures of This Fire. Following Amen, Cole stepped away for an extended period to raise her children, resurfacing in the late 2000s with two albums on Decca before establishing her own 675 Records imprint for the 2013 release Raven. Ballads, issued in 2017, reached the Top Ten on Billboard’s Jazz Albums chart and initiated a sequence of American-songbook projects that continued with Revolution in 2019 and the blues-oriented American Quilt in 2021. Lo, released in 2024, marked her first collection of entirely original material in nearly a decade.

Born in Rockport, Massachusetts, to an amateur musician father and a visual-artist mother, Cole grew up immersed in creative surroundings. After high-school graduation she enrolled at Berklee College of Music, where she concentrated on jazz vocal technique and improvisational skills. Once she completed her studies, Cole pursued music professionally to support herself while continuing to develop original compositions independently.

Her initial major opportunity came when Peter Gabriel asked her to join his 1992–1993 world tour. Not long afterward she signed with Imago Records and issued her debut album, Harbinger, in 1994. Imago ceased operations within a year, leaving the record without substantial radio or press exposure. In 1995 she moved to Warner Bros., which re-released Harbinger that autumn. Cole delivered her second full-length project, This Fire, in October 1996; the album and its single “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” spread through word of mouth before achieving mainstream success in the first half of 1997. That summer she joined the first Lilith Fair, the traveling festival Sarah McLachlan created to highlight female artists. Cole benefited substantially from the tour’s visibility and became the focus of widespread mainstream coverage.

Although her debut had appeared in 1994, rendering her technically ineligible, Cole received the Grammy for Best New Artist in 1998. The same year she scored another success with “I Don't Want to Wait,” already familiar as the Dawson’s Creek theme. Amen, her third album, arrived in 1999 and expanded her sonic palette with electronica and hip-hop elements. Its comparatively modest commercial performance prompted Cole to withdraw from the spotlight and concentrate on raising her daughter.

Eight years later she resurfaced with the single “14” and the album Courage in 2007. Though only moderately successful, the record signaled a return to the eclectic, jazz-inflected adult-contemporary style she has since maintained. She resumed more consistent recording and touring, releasing Ithaca on Decca in 2010. Cole subsequently used crowdfunding to finance and self-release Raven on her own 675 Records label in 2013. The live-in-studio acoustic-quartet album 7 followed in 2015, succeeded a year later by the concert recording This Bright Red Feeling. Another crowdfunding effort supported the covers collection Ballads, which entered the Billboard jazz albums chart at number ten upon its 2017 release. Revolution appeared in 2019, featuring a cover of Marvin Gaye’s “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)” amid its human-rights-themed material. Two years afterward Cole issued American Quilt, a set of covers that traced shared threads among country, blues, pop, rock, and jazz traditions. Lo, comprising deeply personal original songs and self-produced by Cole, came out on 675 Records in 2024.