Paula Cole

Paula Cole

Paula Cole is an American singer-songwriter from Rockport, Massachusetts. She works across art pop, pop and pop rock, and is also associated with pop, alternative and rock. Raised in a musical family, she studies jazz at Berklee College of Music on scholarship and later teaches and gives clinics as part of her approach to music education.

Career and recordings

Cole releases six solo albums over an eighteen-year career and sells approximately three million albums. Her songs include “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone,” “Me,” “I Am So Ordinary,” “I Believe In Love,” and “I Don’t Want to Wait,” which serves as the theme for the WB series Dawson’s Creek. Her compositions are covered by artists including Herbie Hancock, Annie Lennox and Katherine McPhee.

Awards and collaborations

She wins a Grammy Award and receives seven Grammy nominations. Cole is the first woman to receive a Best Producer Grammy nomination for producing an album on her own, for This Fire. She performs with artists from different genres, including Peter Gabriel and Dolly Parton, and also works with many jazz musicians. She receives her first record deal through a jazz label, which she declines.

Other details

Cole remains closely connected to her family, including her daughter, and keeps in touch with fans online and after live shows.