Holly Cole was born on November 25, 1963 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. From the start she was surrounded by music and musicians. Her parents were both classical players, her brother is a composer and jazz artist, and her grandfather played C&W accordion. In her mid teens, she discovered jazz through Nina Simone and Betty Carter. This discovery led to an impromptu visit to her brother at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, where she got a real feel for performing jazz. In 1983, Holly traveled to Toronto to seek a career in music. Three years later, in 1986, she formed the Holly Cole Trio with pianist Aaron Davis and bassist David Piltch. In 1989, she signed her first record deal in Canada with Canadian indie Label Alert Music releasing that year a 4 song EP, Christmas Blues followed by her first full length recording Girl Talk in 1990 and all subsequent recordings in Canada up to and including 2001’s Baby Its Cold Outside. Alert licensed all those recordings (except the two Christmas releases) to the prestigious Blue Note/ Metro Blue/ Manhattan Records in NYC, headed by mentor, friend, and super fan Bruce Lundvall. Those international releases starting in 1992 with Blame It on My Youth and included 6 Cole albums from 1992 to 2000, including Blame It On My Youth, Don't Smoke In Bed, Temptation, It Happened One Night, Dark Dear Heart, and Romantically Helpless. In 2001, Holly recorded her first full l length Christmas CD Baby It's Cold Outside (following 1989's Christmas Blues EP) which was released to coincide with her national Christmas Symphony tour at that time. In 2003, Holly began to take financial control of her recording career by producing and owning her albums Shade, Holly Cole , Night, Holly, and Montreal (Live), all of which are presently licensed to Universal Music Canada for the World.
On October 21, 2022, a compilation of her two Christmas recordings released individually on Alert Music in 1989 and 2001 titled Baby Its Cold Outside and I’ve Got the Christmas Blues was released on Alert Music, distributed worldwide by Universal Music Canada.