Paula Cole: "Ballads" (New Album, Out 8/11/17)

Paula Cole may be famous for making a big splash on alternative radio in the late '90s and winning Best New Artist at the Grammys in 1998, but there is a lot more to her and she has forged a very good (if very overlooked) career in the years since her commercial heyday.

On August 11, she is releasing her newest album which is called Ballads. It was funded via Kickstarter (I was a contributor) and is an album comprised of 20 "jazz and folk classics from the 1930s to the 1960s." A full track-list has not yet been made available. I think Paula has a beautiful voice and she was actually trained at Berklee as a jazz singer. She has wanted to make a standards album for years and has finally found the chance.

Here is the album cover, an homage to John Coltrane's Blue Train.


The first track, a cover of "God Bless the Child," has been made available on Billboard.com: Paula Cole Covers Billie Holiday's 'God Bless the Child': Exclusive

There is also a list of tour dates for the rest of the year in this same article.

I just wanted to make the fine folks of this forum aware of this new release, if you happen to be a fan of Paula, her voice or this style of music. The album is available for pre-order on both vinyl and CD on her official website (www.paulacole.com). I have been looking forward to it for over a year and think it has the potential to be a very special, very good record.

 

here is an example of her way with a ballad from the great American Songbook

 

This sounds promising. I enjoyed her work on the Chris Botti albums. Thanks for the information.

 

Her version of "God Bless The Child" is quite good.

I'm looking forward to this.

And her singing with Peter Gabriel on "Don't Give Up" was beautiful. Didn't she join that tour after Sinead O'Connor dropped out?

 

I don't know if Sinead ever planned on touring with Peter Gabriel, but she did do the original studio versions of "Come Talk to Me" and "Blood of Eden" on Us with him. Her voice works very well with his as well and Paula did a great job on the songs live. Peter has always had great taste in collaborators.

 

Here is another song that may be on the new album. Paula has been performing it live, included it on a recent live record and also featured it in the Kickstarter video for this project. This is her version of "Ballad of Hollis Brown" by Bob Dylan:



I love her intense, slow-burning version (and I love the composition as well--it comes from one of my favorite Dylan records). I'd love to get a studio version on Ballads.

 

I've been a Paula-backer for years and see her almost every time she comes to the area, but this album doesn't interest me.

I'm rarely interested in covers albums, and I don't like Paula enough to invest in this one!

 

Here is the track listing for the album, according to Shorefire Media press release:

01. "God Bless the Child"
02. "I Wish I Knew (How It Feels to Be Free)"
03. "Naima"
04. "Ode to Billie Joe"
06. "You've Changed"
07. "What a Little Moonlight Can Do"
08. "I'm Old Fashioned"
09. "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll"
10. "Never Will I Marry"
11. "Skylark"
12. "The Ballad of Hollis Brown"
13. "Body and Soul"
14. "Nice Work If You Can Get It"
15. "Farewell, My Friends"
16. "I Cover the Waterfront"
17. "Blue Moon"
18. "You Hit the Spot"
19. "Willow Weep for Me"
20. "Autumn Leaves"
21. "My One and Only Love"

All jazz standards apart from three curveballs: Bobbie Gentry's country classic "Ode to Billie Joe" and two Dylan songs from the same album (Hattie Carroll and Hollis Brown from his Times They Are A-Changin' album). I posted a live version she did of "Ballad of Hollis Brown" a few posts above, if you would like a sense of her arrangement.

 

I like that "Ode to Billie Joe" is included! Jazz singers like Nancy Wilson, Karin Krog and Patricia Barber have done great versions of the tune so I'm looking forward to Paula's rendition.

Any idea if "Farewell, My Friends" is a new original?

 

You know, it might be. As I was searching for songwriters last night I couldn't find any info on this song. That would be nice, to round out the set.

 

I wonder if it's the song "Farewell My Friend" (singular) by Dennis Wilson?

 

It's funny, I was just wondering what the release date was for this earlier today!

You can hear "Blue Moon" in SoundCloud via this Huff Post link:

Exclusive: Paula Cole Covers “Blue Moon” on forthcoming album “Ballads” | HuffPost

 

For anyone interested:

"Tonight 7/24/2017 at 6pm EDT I'll be streaming live - audience questions, interview and short performance with PARADE Magazine on Backstory."

Paula Cole: July 24, 2017 – New York, NY - BackStory Events

 

Here's the Q&A livestream video:

 

Paula Cole’s acoustic mini-concert which followed the Q&A:

 

From Facebook:

Omar loves the vinyl almost as much as I do.

 

Listening to this on Spotify and enjoying it very much. I hope my vinyl copy will arrive shortly -- I know she mentioned on Facebook that she was busy sending them out earlier this week!

 

Paula Cole covers the classics - The Boston Globe

 

I am listening to the vinyl version of this and it is beautifully recorded. I'm really liking it. I was surprised that it came in since I heard that she was planning to change the cover art due to complaints. My only "complaint" about the cover was that I thought she should have emulated Coltrane's "Ballads" LP cover rather than "Blue Train".

 

Not really about the new album, but I thought I'd post it here in this active Paula thread. It's a very interesting (and in many way, depressing) read...

Paula Cole Reveals The Secret (And Dark) History Of The 'Dawson's Creek' Theme Song | HuffPost

 

Paula's new album, "Revolution", is quite excellent. Nona Hendryx and Meshell Ndegeocello guest. The vinyl just became available on CDBaby and has two bonus tracks:

♫ Revolution (Vinyl) - Paula Cole. Listen @cdbaby

New article/interview from the New York Post:

https://nypost.com/2019/10/09/you-say-you-want-a-revolution-so-does-paula-cole/

 

Here’s Paula’s cover of Marvin Gaye’s “Mercy, Mercy Me” from the new album:

 

New album forthcoming:

Paula Cole on New LP 'American Quilt,' What She Learned From Emmylou Harris



Incidentally, I posted on Paula's FB page to ask if there would be a vinyl release. She/her team wrote "Totally gorgeous vinyl a-comin'!"

 

Paula Cole Announces New Album, Shares New Song - American Blues Scene