City Winery: PAULA COLE

Effective 8/2/21: All indoor guests of City Winery will temporarily need to provide proof of vaccine or show a negative Covid-19 test within the previous 72 hours, and wear masks indoors when moving throughout public areas.

Paula Cole has never been afraid of speaking complex truths. 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. On her latest record, Cole has applied this natural insight to American history and musical roots traditions by interpreting a selection of classic songs – each of which provide an entry point for rediscovering the overlooked stories and figures that populate America’s interwoven cultural lineage.

“I wanted this album to reflect a patchwork of music from the cities and the mountains, the fields and the rivers – from movies, to melodies that traversed oceans, centuries, cultures, and continents – sewn together with our collective heartstrings,” says singer-songwriter Paula Cole of the luminous American Quilt. Not just a geographical tapestry, the breathtaking collection is a cavalcade of blues, jazz, folk, pop, and gospel – with Cole’s remarkable voice the roadmap to Americana, jazz, and standards.

This time around, on her eleventh album, she has restricted her own writing to one stunning composition, the lyrically and sonically multilayered “Hidden in Plain Sight (I Dream).” “I had heard some historical stories regarding slave quilts, so I did some research and composed ‘Hidden in Plain Sight,’” “It is said that women artists created clues and secrets within their quilts and hung them in plain sight for other slaves seeking to flee to the Underground Railroad.