Holly Cole
There is an intelligence and sophistication to Holly Cole’s singing that sets her apart. Nowhere are these strengths more apparent than on her new Metro Blue/Capitol release Dark, Dear Heart.
Dark, Dear Heart shows Cole in her most innovative and evocative setting yet. “I wanted a change,” she says. “I look for that a lot—it’s part of my nature. My Temptation CD was a turn, so was the live one, It Happened One Night.” The desire to explore and take stylistic risks can be found on all five of Holly Cole’s albums. It is with those criteria that she’s built her career around the world.
This CD’s distinctive pop tone is truly an aural snapshot of where Holly Cole is today. “I wanted to expand my sound more,” she explains. “Using greater production, having more guitars and a greater rhythmic push, but making sure the integrity of the trio, which is the core of my sound, remained intact. More importantly,” she is quick to add, “on this album I feel I stretched my voice. I didn’t stay in safe places. I went to positions that were new and really exciting for me as an artist.”
The reason in large part can be attributed to the trust Cole felt in her new producer, Larry Klein (Joni Mitchell, Kyle Eastwood, Shawn Colvin). He’s a Grammy Award-winning producer well-acquainted with helping to create pop records of note. Klein brought in vast amounts of knowledge he accumulated as a musician, songwriter, performer and film composer, to the project.
“I’d been a fan of her voice for a long time,” confides Klein. “It has a dark, smokey eloquence. As a record producer, I wanted to work with that instrument. I have to tell you that as soon as we started, she exceeded all my expectations. I found she has the exquisite talent to know how to use her voice perfectly. But that’s her—she knows her voice so well. Pitch, phrasing, to know how to get the right read on a lyric…as a result many of the songs on the CD are first takes.” The album was recorded and mixed over a six week period in Toronto and Los Angeles. Besides being a showcase for Cole’s stunning voice, the twelve new songs on Dark, Dear Heart reflect her broad taste, shrewd intellect and conscious desire to record music from a wide variety of sources.
In preparation for recording, Cole listened to hundreds of song submissions. The track “You Want More” was written by Sheryl Crow. “She’s never recorded it,” explains Cole. “The moment I heard Sheryl’s demo, I immediately loved it. The final mix Larry came up with is so powerful and is a good example of how I wanted to use guitars this time out.”
Fans of rock from the sixties will recognize Lennon & McCartney’s “I’ve Just Seen A Face.” “One doesn’t scour the Beatles file looking for material,” chuckles Cole, “because it’s been done and done, but I’ve found a new generation of music fans who don’t know this one all that well. Hard to believe, but I’ve even had people come up to me and ask if I wrote it. I wish!”
The most visible songwriter on the album (“Dark, Dear Heart” and “Brighter Lonely Day”) is the critically acclaimed Mary Margaret O’Hara. “She’s a very good friend,” says Cole. “We both live in Toronto and over the years have developed a strong understanding of one another. Her writing speaks to me in volumes. It is stellar, highly poetic, poignant and really playful…and most important—great to play!”
Perhaps the CD’s most vulnerable tune is its oldest. ”’River’ is a song from my past,” confides Cole. “As a teenager, Joni Mitchell was my idol, and Blue was one of my favorite albums. I rediscovered it last year when I was looking for material to sing at my Christmas concerts. It’s a song about escaping and one of the most important on the CD.”
For this CD, Cole used a blue chip team of musicians. The band’s harmonic center is still pianist/organist Aaron Davis and bassist David Piltch. Davis is an incisive soloist, with a bright ringing tone, who turns each song into a lesson in eloquent improvising. He may be the most sympathetic accompanist working. Piltch is one of the premiere bass players of his generation and has the quality, rare among bass players, of drawing attention to what he’s doing. To round out the contribution, they both co-wrote songs with others for the album. Davis’ plaintive “Make It Go Away” and musically adventurous “Timbuktu,” and Piltch’s rhythmic look at life, “World Seems to Come and Go.”
In addition to her regular team, Cole enlisted the support of several other musicians. Jon Hassel, who is known for his collaborations with Brian Eno, played trumpet on one track. Dean Parks, one of the most in-demand session musicians on the planet, contributed spectacular electric guitar work to several songs. But it is Holly Cole who makes this an astonishing record.
Holly Cole is one of the world’s best interpretive singers, and she has created a mesmerizing pop album. Simply stated, Dark Dear Heart is a marvelously deep record, created for people who still listen.
