Paula Cole - who will perform at the Mid-State Fair on Saturday night - is back in the saddle

By Sarah Linn
slinn@thetribunenews.com

It’s taken motherhood, heartache and nearly a decade of soul-searching, but Paula Cole finally sounds at peace.

Best known for a handful of hits in the mid-1990s, the singer-songwriter took a years-long hiatus from show business. Now she’s back with a new album, a new tour and a renewed sense of purpose.

“Taking seven years off in the pop industry is like near death,” Cole told The Tribune recently, speaking from her parents’ Rockport, Mass., home. “I’m coming out of hiding.”

After a stint with Peter Gabriel’s Secret World Live tour and a hit-or-miss first album, Cole found widespread success with her 1996 album, “This Fire.” Her prickly alt-pop single, “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?”, conquered the airwaves, while “I Don’t Want to Wait,” a wistful anthem, became the theme song for teen drama “Dawson’s Creek.”

“It’s just an unreal set of circumstances when you’re that popular,” recalled Cole, now 40.

After her third album, “Amen,” proved a commercial flop, Cole decided to take a break from show business. She needed time to get out of an abusive marriage to a fellow musician. Time to raise her daughter, Sky. Time to find herself musically again.

Finally, in 2005, producer Bobby Columby coaxed her to sing on several tracks of trumpeter Chris Botti’s album “When I Fall In Love.” For Cole, who studied jazz at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, it was an easy sell.

“We were at Capitol Studios, where my idol Nat King Cole recorded,” the singer said. “It was so wonderful. I caught the disease of loving the music again.”

With Columby’s encouragement, she started working on a fourth album — teaming up with the likes of jazz great Herbie Hancock and Brazilian icon Ivan Lins. “Courage” debuted in June 2007.

Cole spoke to the Tribune about her music and her career. She plays two free concerts Saturday at the California Mid-State Fair in Paso Robles.

Talk about your early success with your second album “This Fire.”

I was standing with Fiona Apple at the Grammys. I remember saying to her, “It’s so weird. You’d think you’d have more power the more successful you get, but it’s actually the opposite. You actually have less power.” … You’re weaned from having a personal life.

I was young and naďve and I was pushed out into the world of pop and expected to dance and I did dance. I was a good girl. I’m going to do it differently this time.

In 1997 you were nominated for seven Grammy Awards and won one, for best new artist. That must have been a surreal experience.

People around you make you think it’s such a huge deal.

Because it’s your three minutes of live international television, everybody gets so stressed out. Really you have to be spiritually more wise and grand so that other people’s stress doesn’t (affect you). …

That night was a high point on one hand and a low point on another.

After so many years away from show business, what brought you back?

It would be easier for me to abandon music and not leave my daughter’s side, but I have this voice and this need to sing, and I honestly get depressed if I don’t sing.

Music is a form of therapy for me. And the songs I write, the messages I ponder become that way for other people.

What’s it been like to be back on the road touring and performing?

It has been really different. I’m headlining almost of the time, which is great. I tend to do longer shows and I tend to talk to audiences more. After 40 years, there’s a little more wisdom than there was when I was 20. … I’ve kind of realized that I’m not going to be on MTV and it’s not going to be on the radio, and that’s good.

Obviously, some things have changed since the last time you went on tour.

(Because of my daughter) I feel really a member of the routine 9-to-5 world. I can’t go off on my vampire schedule anymore.

You call yourself a “natural introvert.” Do you have a certain ritual before you get on stage?

Yoga helps. I love to have time alone and meditate and do a little yoga before I go out. When I lived in Los Angeles, I studied with the Sikh community … One of their central messages is, “I bow to the teacher within.” Without trying to sound dogmatic, I just bow to that mystery that is inside of me and everybody. That just centers me and helps me.

Where did “Courage” come from?

The writing was natural. I was just dialoging with my self-conscious. (The songs) are all just snapshots of where I was.

“Courage” is all of my more eclectic work, more blending of my jazz influences and world influences. … It’s gentler. It’s not angry at all, and I’m proud of that.

I’d like to make another album in 2009. I think it will probably reflect more of my rock influences again.

Would you ever put out a jazz album?

I’ve been waiting for years to freakin’ do that! I wish I had been a songwriter in the ’60s or ’70s when they put out an album every year. The recording process now is so agonizingly slow.

I’ve had lots of things I’ve wanted to say over the year. I’d like to have a live album. … As dorky as it is — I’m a big cornball — I’d love to make a Christmas album.