Sisterhood of Song: Paula Cole and Sophie B. Hawkins to tour Western Canada
- Scott Roos
- Oct 9
- 6 min read
by Scott Roos
Two of the most unforgettable voices of the 1990s are hitting the road together this fall - and for Paula Cole, it’s more than just another tour. It’s a journey through time, a reconnection with a creative sisterhood that stretches back decades, and a chance to reflect on a legacy that helped reshape the music industry itself.
Cole joins Sophie B. Hawkins for an 11-date Western Canadian tour beginning October 16 in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, and wrapping October 30 at Victoria’s McPherson Playhouse. For Cole, it’s a long-anticipated chance to see the heart of Canada - and a welcome break from the unstable and ever changing political climate of the U.S.
“I’ve not been in the middle of Canada,” she told NSMZ. “I’m going to be on long drives, prairie drives with my friend Sophie B. Hawkins. And I’m so glad to leave the United States for a couple of weeks and be in your culture and in your kindness.”
That kind of plainspoken honesty is quintessential Paula Cole - the fearless storyteller whose voice defined a generation through timeless anthems like “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” and “I Don’t Want to Wait.” Nearly 30 years after This Fire earned her the Grammy for Best New Artist, Cole continues to channel her experiences - political, personal, and spiritual - into songs that cut to the bone. Her latest album, Lo (released March 1 of 2024), is both a homecoming and an evolution: written, and produced entirely by Cole, it’s a record that lays bare the artist’s heart.
“I had done a collaboration with Jason Isbel and John Paul White down in Nashville and it forced me to write because we needed a song and there was a lot of pressure,” says Cole," I went deep and I came up with this song everyone liked ("Mother, Son and Holy Ghost") it, thank God, and it started the process for me again of touching the vein of gold of personal feelings and I just didn't stop writing and the songs funneled into Lo."
"I even addressed really like personal things (in Lo) that I hadn't admitted to myself.... It's tremendously healing when you get to that place to be quietly brave and deal with your inner truths in songwriting."
For Cole, that vulnerability marks a return to the artistic wellspring that fueled her early work - particularly This Fire, which will celebrate its 30th anniversary in 2026. While she remains tight-lipped about specifics, she teases a forthcoming release and special concerts to mark the milestone. “I do have plans for next year,” she said. “I can’t tell you - I want to - but there’s an announcement coming soonish…. in honor of the 30th anniversary. I’ll be doing 30th anniversary concerts of This Fire in the fall. (of 2026)”
Fans attending the Western Canada dates can expect material from Lo, but she promises that the classics will make an appearance too. “People would be disappointed if I didn’t play them,” she laughed. “Those songs are unique. They’re everlasting, evergreen songs. I don’t mind revisiting them.”
That duality — the pull of the past, the urgency of the present — defines this tour. It’s a meeting of two icons whose paths first crossed on VH1’s Storytellers with Melissa Etheridge in the ’90s, and who reconnected at the Girls Rising event honoring women in music. “We just kept running into each other,” Cole recalled. “It was lovely to connect again. I was reminded, 'oh, we really hit it off in 1995'. And so then we decided to do a tour together in ’23 and ’24. And here we are again. We just are friends now. It’s nice.”
The camaraderie is mutual. “Paula is so caring and so generous and such a great musician, songwriter and singer,” Hawkins told NSMZ earlier this year. “She really keeps the bar totally high.”
Cole returns the compliment, albeit with her trademark humility and humor. “We’re different,” she said. “We're really different. She's more wild.... I think she's really entertaining, probably more than I am. I'm probably more serious. I probably take myself too seriously. So she's whipping her hair and she whips off her jacket and she is almost always barefoot and she plays djembe kind of frenetically. She's very cool visually where like, I kind of somberly go deeper in music. And also, I think her songwriting is underrated. I think she's a beautiful songwriter.”
That sense of musical and emotional contrast makes this co-headline pairing so compelling. Hawkins, celebrating the 30th anniversary of her breakout Whaler with a reimagined Whaler – Re-Emerging, brings the ecstatic, untamed energy of her platinum hits “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover” and “As I Lay Me Down.” Cole, meanwhile, continues to mine the spaces between the personal and the political — a balance she’s refined since her days as a central figure in the Lilith Fair movement.
As the recently released Lilith Fair documentary rekindles conversation about that groundbreaking era, Cole reflects on it with pride and perspective. “It was wonderful,” she said. “I toured with Sarah McLachlan for four years… and every night I would thank the audience for being there and thank Sarah for inviting me because it was so rare for women to open for women. Promoters didn’t want that. They thought it wouldn’t sell tickets. But of course it would (and did). It was beautiful.”
Lilith Fair, she says, wasn’t just a festival — it was a cultural pivot point. “The audiences were the best of my whole career, the most loving, peaceful, optimistic audiences I’ve ever experienced,” she recalled. “We knew change was in the air. We knew we were it. The whole audience was part of this zeitgeist of culture change.”
That wave of change still ripples outward. “You can’t control culture when it’s infused with love and change,” Cole said. “It’s going to go into the people, and it’s coming out decades later. I see it in the next generation — in Gen Z singer-songwriters, in female bands. There are so many more women playing bass and drums or trumpet or instruments they were once directed away from as girls. It’s wonderful to see that explosion.”
Cole herself remains a powerful symbol of that artistic freedom - a musician’s musician, and singer's singer, who’s never been content to stay in one lane. Her discography spans jazz, folk, Americana, and political soul; she’s collaborated with legends, most noteably perhaps was her time as a backup singer for Peter Gabriel. Yet for all her stylistic restlessness, rhythm remains her heartbeat. “I have a very strong sense of time and rhythm,” she said. “I’m rhythm-based in my singing. If I beatbox or play guitar or piano, I just feel the groove. That’s where I live.”
Fans can expect to hear that groove when Cole takes the stage with her longtime collaborators — guitarist Chris Bruce and bassist Ross Gallagher — performing as a trio. “It’s myself on piano and guitar, Chris Bruce, who’s been playing with me for over 20 years, and Ross Gallagher on bass and singing,” she said. “Sophie B. will have Seth Glier with her. It’s going to be joyful.”
Joyful, yes — but also reflective. Cole speaks candidly about family, loss, and resilience, themes that run through Lo. “I have a whole bunch of songs that don’t have words yet, but I’m burgeoning. I feel that pregnant feeling. I’m going to get back to some very personal writing.”
That kind of openness has long been Cole’s superpower — her ability to translate the deeply personal into something universal. It’s what made This Fire burn so brightly in 1996, and what keeps Lo smoldering now. As she prepares to mark the 30-year milestone of the album that launched her career, her gratitude for its endurance is palpable even when it comes to "the song" - "I Don't Want To Wait".
“I’ve talked about that song my entire life,” she said of her biggest hit. “It is the song of my life — and no shade on that.”
For audiences across Western Canada this October, Paula Cole’s music - like her conversation - promises both fire and grace. It’s an invitation to revisit the past, to honor the spark that lit a movement, and to witness an artist still evolving, still telling her truth, and still, unmistakably, herself.
Western Canadian Tour Dates
October 16 – North Battleford, SK – Dekker Centre for the Performing Arts
October 17 – Camrose, AB – Jeanne & Peter Lougheed Performing Arts Centre
October 18 – Fort Saskatchewan, AB – Dow Centennial Centre – Shell Theatre
October 19 – Prince Albert, SK – E.A. Rawlinson Centre for the Arts
October 21 – Brandon, MB – Western Manitoba Centennial Auditorium
October 22 – Winnipeg, MB – Club Regent Event Centre
October 25 – St. Albert, AB – Arden Theatre
October 26 – Red Deer, AB – Red Deer Memorial Centre
October 27 – Calgary, AB – Bella Concert Hall
October 29 – Vancouver, BC – Vancouver Playhouse
October 30 – Victoria, BC – McPherson Playhouse
Paula Cole’s Lo is available now. Sophie B. Hawkins’ Whaler – Re-Emerging officially arrives later this year.
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