Holly Cole

There is an intelligence and sophistication to Holly Cole’s singing that sets her apart. She can imbue well-worn standards and eclectic songs with an uncanny combination of sensuality, innocence, originality and sheer musicality. Cole takes tunes everybody thinks they know and discovers new undercurrents in the venerable anthems of contemporary composers, wrapping her honesty, compassion and sardonic wit around their sometimes-fragile creations. The results are sexy, provocative, spellbinding, sometimes dangerous-and never, ever dull. “I look at the essence of a song,” muses Holly Cole. “If it’s a great lyric I often love to slow it down, explore it, dissect it and deconstruct it. I love to take it apart and then put it back together and look at it in an entirely different way. In the process, it often becomes more evocative. That’s a huge part of my art form, that’s a huge part of what I do.” Another thing that has become a large part of what she does is Christmas and like mistletoe and brightly wrapped presents, Coles symphony tour of Canada in November and December has become a holiday tradition. She has two Christmas recordings, her first the ep “Christmas Blues” and the full recording “Baby its Cold outside.”
Holly Cole has been staking her own substantive claim to this repertoire for most of the past twelve years. Beginning with her self-produced Christmas Blues EP in November 1989, Cole has charted a career that has included seven albums, six of them gold and platinum, a couple of anthologies, the aforementioned EP, a gold album in Japan for her 1993 album “Blame It On My Youth”, several television specials and some of the finest and most engaging vocal work in the world of contemporary pop. Her last release was 2004’s “The Holly Cole Collections, Vol. 1” CD which is a career retrospective featuring a collection of her audiences favourite songs. It was met with great success.
Born and raised in the Maritimes, Cole grew up surrounded by music; her parents are classical players, her brother is a composer and jazz artist, her uncle sang and acted on Broadway and her grandfather played C & W accordion. In her youth she listened to everything from Broadway Musicals, Country and Western and Classical to sixties rock and the pop of her generation. In her mid-teens she discovered Nina Simone, Sonny Rollins and Betty Carter and for a long time listened exclusively to jazz. “Jazz is a big influence on my sound but ultimately it’s a fusion of many styles”.
Ms Coles latest project, her self titled 8th recording will be released in late February 6th in Canada. The recording is co-produced by Greg Cohen (who has also produced her second full length recording “Blame It On My Youth”) and includes a collection of standards like “Charade”, “Reaching For The Moon”, “I Will Wait For You” and her first self composed song entitled “Larger Than Life”. The recording was arranged by Gil Goldstein and was recorded almost entirely in New York City this summer using a nonet of New Yorks finest musicians. ~ hollycole.com