“Life goes on,” Paula Cole sings on her sixth and latest solo album, Raven. She’s had big hits like “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” and “I Don’t Want to Wait,” sold close to three million records, and won a Grammy – for Best New Artist in 1998 – as well as earning six other nominations, including Producer of the Year. She’s played for huge audiences, written songs recorded by Herbie Hancock, Annie Lennox, and Katherine McPhee, and had her work featured on television and in the movies. Life goes on, though, and what do you do for an encore? If you’re Paula Cole, you keep making music that matters. As the website allmusic.com says in its review of her new album, “Ultimately, Raven is about discovery, mining creative terrain in a direct way: looking at a song, discerning what it needs, and laying it out there as authentically as possible.”

Paula grew up in Rockport, Massachusetts, attended Berklee College of Music on scholarship, and replaced Sinead O’Connor on tour with Peter Gabriel, vaulting to sudden prominence and signing with a big record company. She took a break from the music industry after her daughter was born, but now she’s back. Rolling Stone has called her “an extraordinary songwriter with a gorgeous voice,” and that description still applies. “All I have is melody and pain,” she sings on the new album – but don’t forget that voice, the songwriting chops, and the willingness to cut to the bone. Life goes on, and Paula continues to write, produce, and perform meaningful music that delights and inspires.

Visit Paula Cole's website

Listen to a track from Paula Cole:

Photo by Erica McDonald