Paula Cole is probably most well known to non-fans for I Don't Want To Wait, the theme song for the 90s teen drama Dawson's Creek. I was also crazy about her triple Grammy-nominated hit Where Have All The Cowboys Gone and Me, the third and final single from her second album, This Fire. She has released several albums since the multi-platinum selling This Fire, including Amen (1999) - fun fact: Paula and her band performed the title track from this album on an episode of Charmed in 2000 - the jazz-influenced Courage (2007), Ithaca (2010), which saw her return to the folk-rock sound of her earlier work, Revolution (2019) and American Quilt (2021), an album featuring interpretations of songs from the American songbook, encompassing blues, jazz, folk, pop and gospel, such as Black Mountain Blues, Wayfaring Stranger, Shenandoah, Bye Bye Black Bird and What A Wonderful World.
The bio on her official site sums up her enduring appeal: "With a musical catalog defined by honest and deeply personal lyrics carried by her powerful, radiant voice, Cole has always had a gift for discerning the underlying humanity in stories from her own life as well as those around her, and channeling those emotional elements into captivating music".
I saw her live show at City Winery in NYC, the intimate performance venue on the Hudson River where I saw Tiffany this summer. She looked gorgeous in an all-black nod-to-the-90s ensemble, including knee-high boots and choker with her platinum hair pulled back into a ponytail. What surprised me was the contrast between her pure and powerful singing voice and her gentle and airy speaking voice, a perfect storytelling voice. Indeed, in between songs she enchanted the audience with anecdotes about her past, her time in NYC, the people behind the songs as well as the importance of music: "Music is primal, it's soul food, we know how much we need it".
I was thrilled that she performed what I consider to be the aforementioned holy trinity of her discography: Where Have All The Cowboys Gone, Me (which was a personal anthem for self-deprecating me through the late 90s) and I Don't Want To Wait (it took me right back to my Dawson's Creek obsession). She also performed several of the tracks from This Fire, which turns 25 this year.
The setlist was as follows:
Comin' Down
Black Mountain Blues
Oh John
Tomorrow I Will Be Yours
Blues In Gray
New York City
Throwing Stones
Carmen
Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?
Hush, Hush, Hush.
I Am So Ordinary
Me
Encore:
Mississippi
I Don't Want To Wait
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