Background

Sarah McLachlan was born on January 28, 1968, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Since she was a little girl she had an interest in music and showed signs of growing up to become a brilliant singer. She took lessons in voice and piano and learned classical music as well. The daughter of Judy James, McLachlan was raised by her adoptive parents Jack, an American-born marine biologist, and Dorice McLachlan; the family also included two older adopted brothers, Stewart and Ian.

Education

Sarah McLachlan studied at the Queen Elizabeth High School and while she was still in the school she became a part of a rock band called The October Game. She was offered a music contract but her parents insisted on her finishing school first. McLachlan received classical training in guitar, piano, and voice.

She completed her studies at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and moved to Vancouver where she signed a contract with the recording label "Nettwerk."

Career

On the strength of McLachlan's debut, 1988's Touch, the budding songwriter was signed to Arista for international distribution. The album eventually reached gold status in Canada and was reissued worldwide in 1989. In 1991, she followed up with Solace, an impressive collection that showed a great leap in songcraft and began to build a strong cult following in the United States.

In September 1992, following a 14-month promotional tour, McLachlan traveled to Cambodia and Thailand to work on World Vision, a Canadian-sponsored documentary on poverty and child prostitution. Inspired by her experiences, she retreated to a secluded house outside of Montreal to write material for her next album. After six months in a Montreal studio with collaborator/producer Pierre Marchand, she released Fumbling Toward Ecstasy, her strongest and most personal effort to date, in late 1993. The album peaked in the United States charts at number 50; by the end of 1994, it reached platinum status after spending 62 weeks on the chart. "Possession," an atmospheric single that mixed electronica influences with lyrics inspired by a stalker, broke the Top 100 and received considerable airplay, especially on modern rock radio, where it peaked at number 14. "Good Enough" also found a home in that format, reaching number 16. The Freedom Sessions, consisting mainly of alternate versions of tracks from Fumbling, arrived in 1995; that same year also saw the release of "I Will Remember You," which McLachlan wrote as the theme for Brothers McMullen. Rarities, B-Sides & Other Stuff, a collection of non-LP tracks and remixes, was issued in Canada in 1996.

In 1997, McLachlan began work on her fourth album, the enormously successful Surfacing, which debuted at number two on the pop albums chart. She also organized Lilith Fair, a package tour focusing on emerging women singer/songwriters. Released in 1999, the multi-platinum Mirrorball chronicled McLachlan's performances on that tour and served as her first live release. In 2003, after a short hiatus from the business, she put out the successful Afterglow, followed by another concert release, Afterglow Live. Both releases eventually went multi-platinum, and McLachlan continued to tour through 2005. In June of that year, she performed on the Philadelphia stage of Live 8, the multi-city anniversary celebration of Live Aid and G8 summit protest coordinated by Live Aid founder Bob Geldof. She released Bloom, her second remix collection, several months later. While most of its material was drawn from Afterglow, it also included a version of the 1989 McLachlan track "Vox" and a previously unreleased collaboration with DMC and Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am.

McLachlan released two albums in 2006: Mirrorball: The Complete Concert, which captured the entirety of the last date on her 1998 tour, and Wintersong, a collection of traditional and modern Christmas covers (plus one new song, the title cut). She then returned to the original material for 2010's Laws of Illusion, her first studio album in nearly seven years. Featuring "One Dream," which she wrote for the 2009 Vancouver Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony, the album was released several weeks before the start of Lilith Fair 2010, the festival's first appearance in more than a decade. McLachlan spent the next couple of years focusing on her charitable endeavor The Sarah McLachlan School of Music, which provided free music lessons to at-risk kids in Vancouver. She returned to the studio in 2013 to record a new album with longtime collaborator Pierre Marchand, inspired by the recent death of her father. Parting ways with Arista, her label home for more than 20 years, she signed to Verve. She released Shine On, her first album for the label and another collaboration with Pierre Marchand, in May of 2014. Shine On debuted at number one on the Canadian charts and number four in the United States; it would win the Juno for Best Adult Contemporary Album. In October 2016, McLachlan released Wonderland, her second Christmas album. The following year, she was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.

Achievements

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  Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan debuted in 1988 with her piano-based folk-pop, which went on to gain her a devoted following, a number of Juno and Grammy Awards, and placement in the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. She also founded Lilith Fair, a concert tour that helped usher other female songwriters into the mainstream during the late '90s, while maintaining her own presence on the charts.
  
  Іn 2010, Мсlасhlаn реrfоrmеd аt thе ореnіng сеrеmоnу оf thе 2010 Wіntеr Оlуmрісѕ іn Vаnсоuvеr іn frоnt оf аn еѕtіmаtеd 3 bіllіоn tеlеvіѕіоn vіеwеrѕ wоrldwіdе.

Works

More photos

• music

  • Touch 1988
  • Solace 1991
  • Fumbling Towards Ecstasy 1996
  • Surfacing 1997
  • Afterglow 2003
  • Wintersong 2006
  • Laws Of Illusion 2010
  • Shine On 2014
  • Wonderland 2016

Religion

McLachlan has not spoken about her religious upbringing. As an adult, she is sort of an agnostic. She has called herself an agnostic, but when directly asked if she believes in God, McLachlan said: "I don’t believe that there’s a guy up there watching down upon all of us. But I do believe that the idea … how do I explain this? God is energy. God is nature. God is in us. God is everything that breathes and lives, that connects us to ourselves and each other. It probably sounds really corny."

She also claimed: "I don’t follow any organized religion, but I do believe in the idea of god as a verb - being love and light, and that we are part of everything as everything is part of us."

Politics

Sarah McLachlan is a feminist. She organized and spearheaded the now-legendary Lilith Fair music festival, an all-women musical tour that, at its heyday, hosted over 200 female acts on one bill. Suddenly, McLachlan was the world spokesperson for feminism. But it wasn’t really her intention: "I just thought it’d be fun to make music with a bunch of women. But it became a big political statement and took a life of its own."

But she accepted her role, saying that she was proud to have showcased women’s talents, and shown that women artists can make money. She thinks that feminism is a worthy endeavor: "We still don’t have job equality, we still don’t have equal pay. There’s discrimination everywhere. I saw it was a daunting task being the new face of feminism, but at the same time, I recognized the weight and the gravity of it."

Views

McLachlan is highly concerned with the environment and animal rights. Of Canadian seal hunting, she said: "The commercial sealing industry in Canada is perverse and sick… They club these seals as early as 12 days old, and half the time they hook them and drag them across the ice… It’s archaic, and it’s horrible, and I want it to stop."

Quotations: "It's an amazing luxury to say I'm 31 years old and I'm gonna take a year off. That's pretty amazing."

"It's a very romantic sentiment, but to think that you would die if you didn't write, well, I would definitely choose to not write and live."

"I'm really lucky that my record companies have been patient with me and leave me alone and give me the time to make it right in my mind."

"Happiness is like a cloud, if you stare at it long enough, it evaporates."

"Trying to force creativity is never good."

"I think often sadness is a great place to get songs from."

"If you love large, you've got to hurt large. If you've got a lot of light, you've probably got an equal amount of darkness."

"I've learned to trust myself, to listen to the truth, to not be afraid of it, and to not try and hide it."

"Time is a beautiful thing. It's like when you meet an old lover on the street six years later and they don't look so ugly anymore."

Personality

Sarah McLachlan is one of the most renowned singers in the world. She donates a significant part of her income to various non-profitable organizations, including ASPCA, Golden Hat Foundation, and others. She was made a Doctor of Fine Arts for raising millions of dollars for AIDS sufferers and underprivileged children.

McLachlan created the Sarah McLachlan Music Outreach Program for the purpose of providing free music education classes to the youths.

McLachlan had a fan-stalker called Uwe Vandrei, who filed a lawsuit against her stating that her song "Possession" was inspired by the obsessed letters that he used to write to her. He committed suicide just before the trial.

Physical Characteristics: McLachlan has a height of 5 feet 7 inches or 170 cm and her weight 59 Kg.

Interests

• charity

• Sport & Clubs

  basketball, surfing

• Athletes

  Israel Paskowitz

• Music & Bands

  John Lennon, Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell

Connections

McLachlan was married to her drummer Ashwin Sood in 1997 in Jamaica. They have 2 daughters together, Ann Sushil Sood and Taja Summer Sood. The couple announced their separation in September 2008 after being married for almost 11 years.

Daughter:

India Ann Sushil Sood

Daughter:

Taja Summer Sood

ex-spouse:

Ashwin Sood

colleague:

Stevie Nicks

Sarah McLachlan lent a hand to the closing track "Love Is" on Stevie Nicks' sixth solo album Trouble In Shangri-La. Not only did Sarah play piano, guitar and sing background vocals on the song, she also drew the dragon for the "S" in Stevie's name as part of the album art.

colleague:

Darryl McDaniels

Darrell "D.M.C." McDaniels, the other member of the pivotal rap group RUN-D.M.C. credits Sarah McLachlan's song "Angel" for lifting his spirits when he was considering committing suicide. The two collaborated on the unlikely duet "Just Like Me" for D.M.C.'s solo album in 2006.

References

• The Official Website of Sarah McLachlan The official website of Sarah McLachlan, featuring tour dates, presale ticketing, news, the official store and more.
• The Official Sarah McLachlan - YouTube
• Sarah McLachlan - Instagram
• Sarah McLachlan - Facebook
• Sarah McLachlan - Twitter