November 19, 2006

Publication title: Parade Magazine, vol. -, Iss. -, pg. –
Place: Unknown
Writer: James Brady

In Step with Sarah McLachlan

She’s beautiful, happily married and the mother of a pre-K daughter. All of her albums have gone gold, platinum or multi-platinum. And she’s been called “one of the most important women in rock.” But when three-time Grammy-winner Sarah McLachlan and I spoke recently about her new album, Wintersong, she confessed that, in her music, “I tend toward the melancholy.”

In fact, her new album, with its traditional and contemporary Christmas songs, could be considered the soundtrack to a blustery winter day. “There’s a cover of John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over),” the classic “Greensleaves” and one of Sarah’s own favorites, “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” a World War II hit. The great Diana Krall even plays piano on one track.

I asked what it was like to work with Krall. “Oh, my God, it was so humbling,” Sarah said. “She’s such a sweet woman. After listening to her, I wanted to rerecord all my own playing. But she said, “Music is so personal, your piano is your piano,” so I didn’t tear it all up.”

As Sarah prepared to go out on the road to promote her new release, she spoke about her family: “I don’t tour as much anymore, because I don’t want to be away from my daughter, India.” Instead, much of Sarah’s time and energy go into a music outreach program that she launched and finances. It provides free music-education classes to inner-city youths whose schools have been hit by budget cuts. And is her own daughter a future singer?

“She loves music and sings all the time, but I haven’t yet heard a melody,” Sarah said, laughing.

Brady’s Bits

Some of the melancholy in Sarah’s music comes from her own life. She was pregnant with her own daughter about the same time her mother was undergoing chemo for cancer, which eventually took her life. “My father was quite deaf, so I had to go to all of her appointments, and I was sick as a dog all that time,” Sarah said. “I decided if she could survive, I could handle morning sickness. Then, after she died, I had this wonderful little girl.” I asked how her dad was doing. “He and my mother were married happily all those years, and now he lives a couple of blocks from us and is remarried to a wonderful woman. Now I have this whole new family.”
Personal
Born Jan. 28, 1968, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Married to Ashwin Sood since 1997; one daughter, India, 4.

Why You Know Her

She’s made multi-platinum albums such as Fumbling Towards Ecstasy and Afterglow. She also founded Lillith Fair, the all-female concert tour, which raised more than $7 million for charities from 1997 to 1999.

What You Don’t Know

She was known in high school for skipping classes to play the piano in the auditorium. And she got the nickname “Medusa” in junior high because of her long, dark, curly hair.