Madeleine Peyroux, Paula Cole to fill Green Music Center with song

Seeing great talent is fun, but encountering two great talents in the same show is even better.

Two powerhouse women singer-songwriters, Madeleine Peyroux and Paula Cole, hit the stage Thursday, Oct. 14, at the Green Music Center, performing some of their most beloved songs.

The duo has been touring together, each with equal billing. But so far, they have not shared the stage at the same time.

“We each have our own set to sing, but I would like very much to break that wall and do a song with her,” Cole said during a recent phone interview.

Later that same day, in a separate interview, Peyroux seconded the notion.

“That’s the nicest thing Paula could have said,” Peyroux said.

So who knows? By the time they reach Rohnert Park, they may have a duet worked out.

The two singers got together through mutual friends in the music world.

“We have a similar circle of musician friends,” Peyroux said. “Currently, we have the same manager. We’ve been working with the same people more and more.”

While their approaches to music are quite different, they both admit to an affinity for jazz. Peyroux and Cole also feel a kinship and a duty to stand up for women.

“When I listen to Paula talk about what she cares about, I feel the same way,” Peyroux said. “Musically, she is very different from me, much more technically advanced as a singer, much more studied as a musician. I think I might have more understanding of the blues, because I have spent more time on early blues, urban blues and modern blues.”

During this tour, Peyroux is celebrating a special reissue of her 2004 album, “Careless Love,” including her rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me to the End of Love.” When the album was released initially, it prompted comparisons with Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Edith Piaf.

A native of Athens, Georgia, Peyroux grew up in New York and California. When she was 13, Peyroux’s parents divorced and she moved with her mother to Paris. Two years later she began singing with street musicians in the Latin Quarter.

She joined a vintage jazz group called the Riverboat Shufflers, then The Lost Wandering Blues and Jazz Band, with whom she toured Europe. She sang vintage jazz and blues songs before finding mainstream success with “Careless Love.”

Peyroux said she feels a special affinity for early 20th-century singers from Bing Crosby to Frank Sinatra to Billie Holiday.

“I like singing simple things and using my phrasing,” she said. “I feel I should write a song only if I can’t find a classic song that says what I want to talk about.”

For her part, Cole is performing her 1996 album “This Fire,” including the hits “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” and “I Don’t Want to Wait,” which was the theme song for the hit TV series “Dawson’s Creek.”

“Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” with its slightly sardonic lyrics — “I will wash the dishes/While you go have a beer” — was hailed as a wry, ironic study of gender stereotypes by many, but misinterpreted by others as nostalgic and anti-feminist.

Unlike some songwriters who ultimately feel their other work is overshadowed by their biggest hit, Cole is fond of the song and thinks the public’s perception of it has evolved.

“I think the song is more understood now by the younger generation,” she said. “I like the song. It’s mine. I wrote it.”

However, there’s much more to Cole’s career than one song.

“The hits were gratifying, but also kind of alarming,” she said. “Labels haven’t worked for me, not a record label or a moniker or a genre. I’m constantly moving forward musically. You must grow and listen to your inner calling.”

In 2013, Cole joined the voice faculty at the Berklee College of Music and served there for seven years. She remains involved at Berklee as a visiting scholar in performance studies.

Earlier this year, Cole released her 10th studio album, “American Quilt,” interpreting a selection of classic songs.

Cole feels, like Peyroux, that they are quite different in their delivery but still have similar tastes in music.

“I have a deep jazz influence, too,” Cole said. “Madeleine and I have a lot in common.”

You can reach Staff Writer Dan Taylor at dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5243. On Twitter @danarts.