Paula Cole on her new album of American classics, Rockport reveries, and those Lilith Fair audiences

But Cole’s jazz dream “sat on a shelf for a couple of decades. And that was meant to be. I was meant to write my own truth. I went down a more feminist pathway of writing my own stories instead of singing stories written by Jewish men in the ‘50s,” she says with a laugh.

And yet.

After Berklee, Cole, now 53, had a bona fide hit with the feminist tongue-in-cheek “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?,” became a Lilith Fair star, and was the first woman to be solely nominated for the best producer Grammy, the same year she won as best new artist. She even had her own infamous Grammy moment, flipping the bird and baring armpit hair during her 1998 performance.

Through it all, jazz quietly tugged at her sleeve. Cole finally gave in, releasing a jazz album, “Ballads,” in 2017.

The leftover tracks became her “bread starter” for her new album, “American Quilt.” Most songs were recorded at Middleville Studio in North Reading.

Here, Cole sews a patchwork of Americana and uniquely American tunes in her distinctive fashion, from the mountain ballad “Wayfaring Stranger” to the cool backroom jazz and blues in “Black Mountain Blues.” The only original patch is Cole’s “Hidden in Plain Sight,” a nod to enslaved people who used quilts as a map to freedom.

Cole ignored genre in selecting songs: “I’ve always been difficult to categorize. I wanted to share musicians who have informed me. To weave songs from the cities, the mountains — it’s all American music, the patchwork of us. The quilt concept made it all coalesce.”

As her upcoming tour brings her to Rockport and Natick this weekend, we caught up with the Berklee visiting scholar to talk the Lilith Fair, “Dawson’s Creek,” and more.

Q. What was it like growing up in Rockport? It seems like such an artistic town.

A. Well, it felt like the end of the earth. I didn’t comprehend how isolated it was at the time. We didn’t even get a decent FM radio signal. I came to a lot of music late, in my 20s, even the Beatles. For me, music was made in the home.

The isolation of Rockport fostered looking to music for solace, for therapy. You were almost relegated to having a spiritual life, with the beaches, the quarries, the granite — geologically informed culture. It made us strong.

Q. Your dad was a musician as well as a biology professor at Salem State. Did you always want to go to Berklee?

A. I went to a Berklee summer program and came home with a scholarship offer. Bob Stoloff approached my parents, because my dad was a musician and knew how difficult the life was. I might’ve studied biology, but I loved music. I was a canary. I was singing since pre-speech.

Q. Your first album “Harbinger” turned 27 recently.

A. Oh gosh, yeah. July 19, 1994. I was singing with Peter Gabriel that day at Great Woods. He’d heard the unreleased album, called and left a message asking if I could join his tour.

Q. You had a big hit with “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” Some people didn’t understand the irony.

A. It was an anthropological learning lesson. You put your work into the world, and you don’t know how it will be interpreted. It’s so fascinating to me, to see some people take such a fundamental take on those lyrics. It was shocking.

Q. You also had a big break with the original “Dawson’s Creek” theme song [”I Don’t Want to Wait”]. But I read it’s not in the streaming version.

A. It’s not currently. There’s so much to say about that. Kevin Williamson, the creator, asked for the song. We said sure, never expecting it to be so successful. And trust me, I’m grateful because that song pays for my life, and pays for my art. Sony, we just made a deal together, and my song at some point is going to be reinstated.

Q. A lot of people associate you with Lilith Fair. What was that time like for you?

A. In the mid-’90s, I opened for Sarah McLachlan, and we were really simpatico. It wasn’t normal for a female artist to invite a female artist as an opener. They literally had quotas for female artists on the radio. I’d stand on stage and thank her for supporting another woman because it never freaking happened. The audience would erupt, because there was truth in it, and they knew it, and they knew it was unjust. Those Lilith Fair audiences, I have to say, were the best audiences ever. We were moving the needle of culture.

Interview has been edited and condensed. Go to https://paulacole.com for ticket information on upcoming shows.

Lauren Daley can be reached at ldaley33@gmail.com. She tweets @laurendaley1.