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Paula Cole (born April 5, 1968 in Rockport, Massachusetts) is an American singer/songwriter. Her single "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone" reached the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 in 1997, and the following year she won a Grammy Award for Best New Artist.

Early life

Cole was born to Stephanie, a visual artist, and Jim Cole, a polka-playing entomologist. She has a sister named Irene. Cole entered the Berklee College of Music in Boston when she was 18, where she studied jazz singing and improvisation. She lived in Rockport, MA with her parents, where she attended Elementary School . Although some press stories focused on Cole being an unpopular and lonely child during her schooling in Rockport High School, this is almost purely fiction. She was, according to her press sources, from middle school on, a very popular student, holding office as class president and student counselor. In addition, she was very active in the school's theatre arts program, starring in many productions, among them "Flower Drum Song" and "Whose Life Is It Anyway?". She was a French Club member and traveled to France as part of a well-established exchange program founded by Foreign Language department head Mary Hayes.

Recording career

Cole got her first big professional break when she was invited to perform on Peter Gabriel's 1993-1994 Secret World Live tour. Shortly after this, she was signed on with her first record company Imago Records. Through this record company, she released her first album Harbinger in 1994. Within that year of Harbinger's release, Imago Records went out of business. This prevented Cole's album from getting radio exposure. However, she wasn't without a record company for long. In 1995, she was signed on to Warner Bros. Records. The record company reissued Harbinger in the Fall of 1995.

Harbinger

Main article: Harbinger (album)

Cole released her debut album, Harbinger, in 1994 with Imago Records. She appeared with Melissa Etheridge to sing a duet on VH1 though she was not well-known at the time.

Harbinger featured songs dwelling on Cole's personal thoughts on discrimination and unhappiness. The songs were musically lush but driven and bleak. The accompanying artwork featured photographs of Cole with a boyishly short haircut, wearing loose fitting black sweatclothes, combat boots and nose ring. Unfortunately the Imago label folded and promotion of Harbinger was limited, affecting its sales. A single, "I Am So Ordinary", was released with a bleak, low-budget black and white video that reflected the album's artwork.

This Fire

Main article: This Fire (album)

In late 1996 Cole released her second album on Warner Bros. Records, This Fire, which was entirely self-produced. The albums's debut single, "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone", became an instant smash radio (reaching #8 on Billboard magazine's pop chart) and MTV hit. The follow up single, "I Don't Want to Wait", was a #11 pop hit single, thanks in part to the fact that it was made the theme song to the popular teen drama Dawson's Creek. (The song was considered by many to be so overplayed that it was lampooned on various sketch comedy shows. Memorably, a sketch on MADtv that spoofed Dawson's Creek had an outsider burst in on a romantic scene and destroy a radio playing the song.) The single "Me" (#35) was also released. The title "Hush, hush, hush", a false duet with Peter Gabriel talks about AIDS and about a young gay man dying in his father's comforting arms.

Cole toured with the Lilith Fair and garnered even more critical acclaim for her live performances. Cole was nominated for several Grammy awards in 1997. Among them was "Producer of the Year" (Cole was the second woman to ever be nominated in this category); she did not win it, but did win "Best New Artist".

Amen

Main article: Amen (Paula Cole album)

Cole took a hiatus to have and begin raising her daughter Sky. In 1999 Cole released Amen with the newly formed "Paula Cole Band". The album's debut single "I Believe In Love" was initially not a success but was remixed into a successful dance song. The album failed to match the success of This Fire. A fourth album was recorded but the label refused to release it; in 2005 Cole uploaded one of the tracks, "Singing Out My Life," to her own website to get her sound out there. She also recorded a song called "It's My Life" during these sessions, which can be heard in Mercury automobile commercials. Cole also made a home recording of a politically charged song called "My Hero Mr. President".

Courage

Cole returned in June 2007 with her fourth studio album Courage, which was released on Decca Records with strong critical praise. The album is in stark contrast to "This Fire" and "Amen" the sound is more relaxed and smooth sounding then Cole's previous albums.

Controversy

In the past, Cole created some controversy by appearing in public wearing tank tops and sleeveless shirts, and even totally nude on the This Fire album cover, without shaving her armpits. One magazine, Entertainment Weekly enraged Cole after airbrushing her armpit hair out of its cover photo. They eventually ran the unaltered photo and Cole's letter to them, citing that the editors of the magazine thought it was a smudge on the photograph "until we saw the Grammys."

Current status

Her official website is now managed by The Colomby Group. She is scheduled for a future tour and the tag "great things are happening" on the site would suggest Cole is ready to release her fourth studio album, "Courage", under her new record company Decca^[1] on the 12 June 2007.

Cole performed a two hour set at Berklee Performance Center in Boston, Massachusetts on February 16, 2007 during which she debuted several songs from her upcoming album. The set began with a solo piano version of "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone" which was replayed toward the end of the concert by the full band. Her performance was reviewed favorably in The Boston Globe on February 19, 2007.

In March 2007, her official myspace previewed three new songs from "Courage," which include "Comin' Down", "El Greco", and the album's first single entitled "14".

On July 10, 2007 Cole sang God Bless America during the seventh-inning stretch of the 2007 Major League Baseball All-Star Game.^{[2] [3]}

In August 2007, Cole will tour with Mandy Moore, playing mid-size venues in the western United States.

Audio Sample

Discography

Albums

• Harbinger (1994)
• This Fire (1996) U.S. #20
• Amen (1999) U.S. #97
• (2006)
• Courage (2007) U.S. #163

Singles

Year	Single	Chart Positions				Album
		US Hot 100	U.S Adult Contemporary	U.S. Adult Top 40	U.S. Modern Rock
1997	"Where Have All the Cowboys Gone"	#8	#27	#4	#32	This Fire
1997	"I Don't Want to Wait"	#11	#3	#9	-	This Fire
1998	"Me"	-	-	#17	-	This Fire
1999	"I Believe In Love"	#112	-	#22	-	Amen
2007	"14"	-	-	-	-	Courage

Notes

External links

• Official site
• Paula Cole Network (an online community of Paula Cole fans)
• Paula Cole Experiments With Rap, Stars In Indie Film