Sarah’s Biography/Discography

Facts
AKA Sarah Ann McLachlan
Born: 28 January 1968
Birthplace: Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Musician
Nationality: Canada
Executive summary: Fumbling Towards Ecstasy

Mother: Dorice McLachlan
Father: Jack McLachlan
Brothers: Ian and Stewart
Husband: Ashwin Sood (drummer, m. 7-Feb-1997-2008)

Daughter: India Ann Sushill (b. 06 April 2002) and Taa-Jah Summer (b. 22 June 2007)

High School: Queen Elizabeth High School, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Canada University: Nova Scotia College of Art and Design

Touch – 1988
Solace – 1991
Live EP – 1992
Fumbling Towards Ecstasy – 1993
The Freedom Sessions – 1994
Rarities, B-Sides And Other Stuff – 1996
Surfacing – 1997
Mirrorball – 1999
Remixed – 2001
Afterglow – 2003
Live Acoustic EP – 2004
Afterglow Live – 2004
Bloom – 2005
Mirrorball – The Complete Concert – 2006
Wintersong – 2006
Rarities, B-Sides And Other Stuff 2 – 2008
Fumbling Towards Ecstasy: Legacy Edition -2008
Closer: The Best Of Sarah McLachlan – 2008
Laws Of Illusion – 2010

With over 25 years in the recording industry, Sarah McLachlan is a multi-platinum singer and songwriter best known for her intimate vocals and relatable lyrics. The Canadian-born, Grammy and Juno Award winning artist has sold over 40 million albums.

McLachlan was instantly drawn to music as a child and honed her skill by studying voice, classical piano and guitar. At just 17 years old, McLachlan was discovered by Nettwerk Records while leading a New Wave band. With her reluctant parents asking her to focus on school, McLachlan waited two years before signing with Nettwerk. With a deal in place, McLachlan packed her bags, moved to Vancouver and began writing music for her first album Touch.

McLachlan followed up her first gold album with Solace, solidifying her as a rising star in Canada. With two successful albums under her belt, McLachlan began penning the lyrics for Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. An immediate hit in Canada, it became her breakthrough in the United States making it onto the contemporary charts and producing the haunting single “Possession”.

McLachlan’s next album would become her best-selling to date. Surfacing peaked at #2 on the Billboard 200 album charts and went eight-time’s platinum in the U.S. The 1997 album was awarded with a Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance for “Building a Mystery” and another for Best Pop Instrumental Performance for “Last Dance”. Surfacing also provided McLachlan with four Juno Awards in her native Canada.

1997 was a big year for McLachlan. Along with her critically-acclaimed Surfacing release, McLachlan organized Lilith Fair which brought over 2 million people together during its three-year run. The Lilith Fair tours raised more than $7 million for women’s charities and helped launch the careers of numerous women singer-songwriters. The festival was the most successful all-female music event and was the top-grossing touring festival of that year.

Her prominent role in Lilith Fair also led to several highly-regarded recognitions for McLachlan. In 1998, McLachlan was awarded the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Visionary Award from New York’s Governor George Pataki for furthering the careers of women in music. McLachlan was then awarded the highest honor a Canadian citizen can receive by being appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1999. Given by Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, the appointment was in recognition of her successful career, her role in Lilith Fair and the charitable contributions she made to women’s shelters across Canada.

In the summer of 1999 McLachlan released Mirrorball featuring live performances of hit songs from her previous two albums. The four-time platinum selling album earned her a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Album and won the Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for “I Will Remember You”.

While taking a break from recording, McLachlan laid the groundwork for the Sarah McLachlan School of Music which officially opened in 2003. The School of Music is an outreach program that provides free after-school musical education, something McLachlan cherished in her own youth, for school-aged children in Vancouver.

Returning to the studio, McLachlan burst back into the spotlight with Afterglow. Reaching double-platinum, Afterglow featured hit singles “Fallen”, “World on Fire” and “Stupid”. McLachlan promoted her album for eight months and followed its release with a year and a half of touring. That extensive tour provided her with the tracks for her 2004 release of Afterglow Live which also included a DVD of concert footage and three music videos from Afterglow.

Changing directions in 2006, McLachlan released her first Christmas album Wintersong. Filled with timeless tracks like her cover of Joni Mitchell’s “River” and the winter classic “Silent Night”, the album rose to the #7 album on the Billboard 200 album chart and claimed the #1 spot on iTunes.

In 2010, McLachlan released her first studio album of all original material for the first time in nearly seven years titled Laws of Illusion. Produced by her longtime collaborator Pierre Marchand, the album featured 12 new songs and debuted at #3 on the Billboard 200. This album featured the single “One Dream” which became the official theme song of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. McLachlan then went on to perform her hit “Ordinary Miracle” at the opening ceremony of the Olympics in her home city Vancouver in front of an estimated 3 billion television viewers worldwide.

Getting back in the studio in 2013, McLachlan began to put together her much anticipated album Shine On. Its release in May of 2014 can’t come soon enough for fans that have waited four years for new material.

Today McLachlan continues to call Vancouver home where she resides with her two daughters, India and Taja.

Over the span of her seventeen year career, Canadian singer/songwriter Sarah McLachlan has attracted a large fan base and critical acclaim through her haunting voice and emotionally charged lyrics. With her Lilith Fair sparking a generation of popular female artists, Sarah’s influence within the music industry has been confirmed. Born January 28, 1968, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Sarah was adopted by two American expatriate academics. Her family also consisted of two older brothers, Ian and Stewart, who are five and three years older than her respectively. All three McLachlan children were adopted. Sarah grew up listening to Joan Baez.

Her musical training started at age four when she picked up the ukulele, which was later supplemented by twelve years of guitar lessons, eight years of piano instruction, and five years of voice training (including three years of opera). Sarah was a troubled and lonesome teenager, nicknamed Medusa by school bullies for her curly hair. “I always sang. It was my security blanket. I would sing to myself, just for fear, for comfort, for joy, for whatever reason. It was my constant best friend.” As a teenager, Sarah’s parents were very strict. She was allowed to go out only one night a week and had to be home by eleven. In fact, she was once grounded for an entire summer. “They were very, very strict. It wasn’t out of meanness. My mother was strict because she loved me and she wanted to keep me safe. It’s easy to look at those actions as an adult and not find any blame. I sure did when I was younger. I blamed her for everything.”

During high school, Sarah befriended a number of musically and artistically talented classmates who hung out at the local arcade. “It was, ‘Finally somebody likes me.’ I knew I wasn’t all messed up and ugly and stupid.” As a teenager, Sarah listened to Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush, whose works greatly influenced her music. During this time, Sarah also started performing live. “I played my first gig in front of people when I was 17, and I knew right away that was exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I didn’t have any aspirations to be a rock star, necessarily. I just loved the response I got while performing, the feeling people liked me.” In 1984, Sarah was discovered by a Nettwerk record executive at her first performance a Dalhousie University in Halifax. At the time, Nettwerk was a small Canadian record company based in Vancouver, BC, and Sarah was part of a band called The October Game. “I got up there, this lonely kid who had been kind of dissed her whole life, and people were smiling at me. It was so clear to me what I wanted to do.”

Nettwerk offered Sarah a chance to record demo tapes but her parents refused the offer and decided that it was best for their daughter to complete high school and attend college. Sarah explains her parents’ perspective at the time, “The only thing they’d ever heard about rock & roll was when someone OD’d.” After high school, Sarah decided to study art in Halifax.

While still in art school, Sarah met her birth mother at the age of nineteen. Sarah describes the incident as “a complete coincidence.” After finding out that Sarah’s mother was looking for her and being that Halifax is a fairly small city, a mutual acquaintance introduced the two. “It was strange and continues to be strange. I never really was interested in knowing her. I love my mother dearly, and she’s really insecure about the whole thing. I don’t want to hurt my birth mother, either, but my mother is my mother. To me, it’s fascinating to know my birth mother, gene wise. That’s really it. My mom and dad gave me a wonderful life.” At around the same time, Nettwerk offered Sarah a five album record contract. This time, Sarah made the decision to relocate to Vancouver to work on her first album. “As much as I had some core thing which always guided me and kept me smiling and upright, I left Halifax with a long way to go.”

In 1989, Touch was released when Sarah was only 19 years old. “I can look back at Touch and, you know, I cringe ever so slightly at some of the lyrics but at the same time I love that because I was 19 when I wrote it and I’m still proud because I didn’t know what the hell I was doing because I’d never written a song before and I can listen to the lyrics and realize I was trying really hard to be serious which is funny because the older I get the less I care about being serious, like I’m finally giving myself permission not to be serious, almost.” Sarah admits that Touch was very largely influenced by Kate Bush.

Sarah’s second album, Solace, started her long working relationship with producer Pierre Marchand. Solace was originally rejected by Arista, Sarah’s distributor in the United States, and had to be reworked over a nine-month period in 1991. “We’d send them stuff that we just felt great about and the label would call and say, ‘That’s not it.’ I’d say, ‘Doesn’t it make you feel something?’ And they’d say, ‘That’s not the point.’ But then what the fuck is the point? I got so heartbroken. At one point I wanted to stop making music.” Sarah credits Marchand with helping her remain committed to the record, “If we hadn’t been making a record together, I would have told him to fuck off and I would have gone home. But, instead, I thought, ‘No, I’m not going to go home with my tail between my legs.’ I had too much pride for that.’

Released in 1994, Sarah’s third album, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, sold over 2.2 million copies and established her loyal fan base. Sarah wrote much of the album while living in a small house near Marchand’s Montreal studio. “Most of my success came through touring and video play and really good press.” The album also earned Sarah a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Album. Possession, the album’s breakthrough hit, was written from the perspective of an obsessive fan. Sarah’s experience with a stalker was the inspiration behind the song. The fan sued Sarah for rights to the song but committed suicide before the matter could go to court. “I was in Copenhagen when I found out he killed himself. I didn’t really know how to feel. I didn’t feel guilty, and I almost felt guilty that I didn’t. I just thought, ‘It’s not my thing. This has nothing to do with me.’ I had a pretty clear understanding of that right from the beginning.” his topic was explored in length in Canadian author Judith Fitzgerald’s book Building A Mystery: The Story of Sarah McLachlan & Lilith Fair.

After releasing Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, Sarah was $400,000 in debt to Nettwerk, mostly because she writes songs and not radio singles. And to repay the debt, “You tour your ass off,” Sarah states. During the Fumbling Towards Ecstasy tour, Sarah dated her keyboard player, Dave Kershaw but the relationship ended during the midst of the tour. Ashwin Sood says of the relationship, “Sarah and Dave were two of my best friends, so I would become very angry at both of them for not being able to work their shit out. I’d come off stage screaming at both of them, saying, ‘You guys sort it out – it’s affecting the show. I never took sides. I wanted it to work out for the both of them. I wanted us to all be happy.”

After the FTE tour, Sarah suffered a serious writer’s block; she wasn’t sure if she’d ever be able to write again. “I slowly but surely lost almost every inch of myself, right down to the core. Things would come out of my mouth and a half-hour later I’d think, ‘What the fuck was that?’ I’d had all this experience and no time to process it. So that was the block.” Nonetheless, Sarah was able to work on her next album after meeting a massage and regression therapist. “She’d go right to the root. She’d take me back to these times and give me the responsibility of picking myself up and giving me what I needed, which is love – my mother’s love, but I had to give it to myself. It was a miracle.’

After dating for two years, Sarah married long-time drummer and friend Ashwin Sood in February of 1997. Also in 1997, Sarah released Surfacing, her most successful album to date. Producing a number of pop hits including Building a Mystery, Angel, Sweet Surrender, and Adia, Surfacing introduced Sarah’s music to millions of new fans.

That same year, Sarah founded Lilith Fair, a concert tour led by female performers than ran for three consecutive summers. Lilith Fair helped launch the careers of new female artists such as Dido and Nelly Furtado and raised awareness of various social issues impacting women. The tour was attended by 2 million people and raised over $7 million for charities. Furthermore, the success of Lilith Fair established Sarah’s importance in the music industry.

In 1998, Sarah won two Grammy Awards for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance (Building a Mystery) and Best Pop Instrumental Performance (Last Dance). In 1999, Sarah released Mirrorball, a live compilation CD that won her both commercial success and critical acclaim. In 1999, she received a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop vocal Performance for I Will Remember You.

Following a six year hiatus, Sarah released Afterglow in November of 2004. While writing the CD, Sarah lost her mother to cancer and gave birth to her daughter India. “For me every record is cathartic and therapeutic to make and writing is always a process of discovery for me; of trying to get closer to my own truth.” The highly anticipated CD debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 chart. Hit singles from the CD include Fallen, Stupid, and World on Fire. Even after more than a decade of writing and performing music, Sarah still manages to touch the lives of fans through her music and concerts.

“I think sometimes all you need is to hear someone else say the same thing that you’re going through to realize that you’re not alone. I try to put some sense of hope into the songs, into whatever the situation is so that it’s not just dirt, drudgery and a life of misery. You’ve got to try to find a flipside to everything, the good side.”

Source : Drawn To The Rhythm

On January 28th 1968 a music legend was born to Judy Kaines James, a 21 year-old student at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Because she was just a student and her schdeual wasn’t open for a child and also because she was a person who never wanted children, Judy decided to give her baby up for adoption. Dr. Jack McLachlan and his wife Dorice adopted Judy’s first and only child shortly after her birth on January 28, 1968. The baby was then named Sarah Ann McLachlan, and welcomed into a family of five including herself, her parents, and her two new brothers, four-year-old Stewart, and six-year-old Ian.

Sarah first showed an interest for music as a toddler. At the age of four she had fallen in love with sound and wanted to make her own music. Because the child was too small to hold a full size guitar, she picked out Joan Baez’s songs on a ukelele her parents had bought her. Her parents encouraged activities such as this, after all she was the entertainment for her mother’s afternoon tea group. There was no doubt that the toddler with the ukelele, and beautiful voice was constantly bestowed with praise.

Praise was exactly what she received during her time at the Maritime Conservatory of Music. Klaro M. Mizerit, the Director of MCM said; “Sarah was a fine student, a bright student . . . she was very dedicated, very determined and she progressed rapidly.” In 1985 Mrs. Margie Farmer presented the young McLachlan, then seventeen, with ‘Dr. Vega Dawson Voice Award’, and a tuition scholarship cheque for $50. The following year Sarah shared with a fellow student, Leslie Stuckles, the “Teodor Britts Memorid Scholarship” which awarded her and her fellow participant $200. That same year Sarah won the Alumni Prize, which is awarded to the student who obtained the highest mark over 80 in each grade. The year she graduated from MCM she placed first in Nova Scotia’s 1987 Kiwanis Music Festival. After graduating from MCM, and after extensive private lessons Sarah McLachlan had a unique, and very professional sound.

At the age of seventeen Sarah was the only vocalist in the all male punk group, October Game. The group contained the musical talents of Jeff Semple on lead guitar, Patrick Roscoe on keyboards, Bug Walsh on rhythm guitar, and Jim Parker on bass. It was when she was with October Game that Sarah got her first offer to be signed with a record label. One evening at a Dalhousie University hangout, October Game opened for the Vancouver based group Moev. Moev’s Mark Jowett, who was also an owner of the Record Label Nettwerk Productions (along with Terry McBride, Ric Arboit, and Gillian Hunt) offered to sign the “quasi-goofy teenage girl, still wearing braces on her teeth” under his company’s label. It was he that said; “. . .She had this warmth, and a voice that lured people right in. She really captivated me.” Unfortunately Sarah couldn’t sign a contract yet because it was against her parents wishes. They wanted her to study at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design instead of going off to a such an unreliable career in the music industry. As Sarah said to MacLean’s magazine in July ’97; “My parents were afraid that I would snort my life away with cocaine.” It was not that they did not trust their only daughter, it was just the only exposure her parents had to rock ‘n roll, or the current music industry was through the news paper when another “rock star” OD’d. October 2 1987, at the age of nineteen Sarah signed a solo contract with Nettwerk, and moved out to an apartment in Vancouver.

When she signed she had not written a song before in her life, but Nettwerk gave her six months to see what she could come up with. “For the first little while,” McLachlan confessed to Dafoe in spring ’89, “I was really lazy. I was just getting to know the city. Then, when I tried to write, I kept writing these songs with too many notes. I had so many ideas floating around, I guess I was trying to cram everything into one song – a bass duet and an orchestra and . . . It was just ridiculous. Finally, I realised that I and to simplify things. I looked at how someone like Peter Gabriel wrote and tried to keep things a little simpler. . .Then, I realised that you’ve got to keep at it; This is my profession now. I don’t always know how a song is going to sound until when I’m finished — the process of writing is important . . .”

Almost a year after she was signed (1988), Sarah had released her first album – Touch. Three hit singles came from that album – Vox (’88), Touch (’89), and Steaming (’89). In 1991 Sarah released her second album – Solace. This album gained her recognition for the singles Drawn to the Rhythm, Into the Fire, and Path of Thorns (Terms) . Solace also got her two Juno nominations (Canadian Music Awards). The next album for McLachlan sent her on an international tour for over two years. The album Fumbling Towards Ecstasy (1992) earned her international recognition for the songs Possession, Hold On, and Good Enough .

It would be a while before Sarah would write songs again. “After two and a half years on the road with Fumbling. I had built up so many walls that I looked in the mirror and said, ‘I don’t know who the hell I am anymore.'” Soon she went into therapy. She went through alot of soul searching “One of my greatest fears is water at night. I found I had to throw myself into the dark black water, and roll around and explore the unknown, and then eventually emerge, or surface.” Eventfully Sarah did surface after her therapy, and a retreat, by herself, in a cabin in Ontario. Her perpose in this retreat was so that she could be away from the city and the pressures of being a celebrity, so she would be able to write again. Hence the name of her latest album Surfacing (1997). Her current hits, from this album, to date are Building a Mystery (’97), Sweet Surrender (’97), Adia (’98), and Angel (’99).

1997 was labelled “The Year of Sarah McLachlan”. First of all in February of that year McLachlan married her drummer Ashwin Sood. That summer her fourth album was to be released (Surfacing), and she had planned something that had never happened before – an all female tour.

This tour was soon named Lilith Fair. According to some sort of mythology Lilith was Adam’s (as in Adam and Eve) first wife. Unlike Eve, Lilith was as strong willed. Adam refused to treat Lilith equally, and so she left him. This leaves us to believe that Lilith was the first feminist. Lilith Fair is not just about a group of women performing on the same bill, and the tour was not meant to alienate men, the purpose of the tour was to celebrate the fact that woman are beautiful, and talented. The tour was a huge success, out selling the father of summer concert touring events – Lollapalooza (Lilith earned double the amount of money that Lollapalooza earned. . .Lollapalooza earned 7.5 million and Lilith earned 15 million dollars). Also Sarah donated one dollar of every ticket sold was donated to local community organisation. One local one was The Vancouver Rape and Relief and Women’s Shelter (that organisation received $16,514).

This same year McLachlan was also labelled Chatelane(a Canadian women’s magazine)’s “Woman of the Year”, she was nominated for three Grammies, and received two, was nominated for four Junos, and came home with all four.

Recently Sarah has released a live album Mirrorball. This album was recorded throughout her Surfacing tour during the Spring of 1998. She is preparing for the thrid and what is said to be the last Lilith Fair. After Lilith Fair is over Sarah and Ash plan to settled down and try and have a family.

Source : Biography written by Alana

“When you look up Afterglow in the dictionary, it is defined as ‘the glow or light that remains once the sun is gone’. You’re used to this bright, shiny beautiful glow but the moment the sun disappears, all of a sudden you have to readjust everything. It’s a very transitional moment. A lot of these songs are about transition… the turning over of the rock, what’s underneath, the murky, shadowy uncertainty where everything looks very different.”
– Sarah McLachlan

Birth, death, tragedy and joy; the six years since the release of Sarah McLachlan’s last studio album Surfacing have been both defining and redefining, not just in the world’s recent history but also in Sarah’s own life.

As a result, Afterglow is a record of many layers. At first glance, the warmth of production, the purity of her voice and the beautiful harmonies all serve as a reminder of the reasons that McLachlan has gained worldwide acclaim for her talents. As the disc unfolds, however, it becomes clear that this record is a merging of two elements: the wonderfully familiar and the new.

The most familiar aspect is unquestionably the richness in Sarah’s music. Afterglow contains many moments that evoke reminders of the singer’s unique musical gifts. From the reflective first single, “Fallen”, to the love-inspired lyrics of “Push”, to the gorgeous, whispered tones of “Answer”, there are many melodies on Afterglow that showcase her strengths.

Some of Sarah’s favored moments seem destined to be beloved by fans as well. “‘Answer’ is one of my favorites”, she admits, smiling broadly. “It’s a total ‘two o’clock in the morning, whispered in your ears’ headphone track. That’s always been my thing, feeling the very essence of a song. I have to be able to break it down and still feel its strength acoustically on piano or guitar. If the essence is strong, you can do whatever you want with it, it’ll still be good. ”

I own my insecurities I try to own my destiny That I can make or break it if I choose – “Perfect Girl”

While the familiar is most charming, equally endearing is the newness found within Afterglow’s grooves. Ironically, one of the biggest changes in Sarah’s music is also perhaps the least noticeable to the listener’s ear: her songwriting process. “I used to go live in a cabin in the woods for eight months and write and write and write. Now, spending time with India [Sarah’s young daughter] means that I have two hours in the day where I’m not focused on her, yet even then my focus is continually being brought back to her. All of my old tricks didn’t apply anymore in songwriting, and I really had to find that new way.”

In exploring that process, Sarah discovered another benchmark; for the first time in her career, not one song on Afterglow was written on guitar. Instead, all were created on piano. Every one of the tracks were written in the last 2 1/2 years and all were recorded either at producer Pierre Marchand’s home studio in Montreal or at McLachlan’s own home studio in Vancouver.

For courage to pull away there will be hell to pay the deeper you cut to the bone – “Time”

Anyone who is familiar with Sarah McLachlan’s recent history might well expect that the songs on this record would be entirely about love and loss. Since 1997’s Surfacing, Sarah lost her mother to cancer and had a baby. “To me,” she admits, “Afterglow is a perfect metaphor for that reason. Such a huge transition…first, losing my mother, then five months later giving birth to India. It’s still all a blur to me — it has less to do with the album tracks and more to do with my recent state of mind. I’m sure in five or six years there’s going to be a record about all of this, but it’s too close right now.”

Even during McLachlan’s ‘down time’, her philanthropy never lulled. She has continued to impact the lives of others. September 2003 marked the third year that Sarah has funded the Sarah McLachlan Music Outreach Program, which provides free music education classes to inner city youths whose school music programs have been affected by budget cuts. “As a kid,” she recalls, “music saved my life; having that one thing that I knew I was good at made all the difference. A lot of these kids might have that, but there’s no outlet. It feels so good to be able to see their lives impacted, and I’m the first one at the recitals giving them a standing ovation. There’s hardly any joy comparable.”

Back to the project at hand, Afterglow is a record of cumulative life experiences: a collection of beautiful melodies, lush instrumentation, occasionally surprising lyrics, and a musical whole that is yet another reminder of just how talented this artist is.

“When anyone asks ‘Why did it take so long in between records?'” Sarah explains, unhesitatingly, “The answer is that I was just living my life. I lost a mother and I became a mother. Almost a year after having India, I walked away from music for a few months. I didn’t play my piano, I didn’t open up my journals, I just really needed to let go of all the pressures and the expectations of ‘it’s been so long…gotta get this record out’ stuff. I felt paralyzed. Taking a break and walking away was the best thing I could have done. I came back to it with fresh ears, listened to the tracks, and I realized that it was all sounding really good and to finish it didn’t seem impossible anymore. That’s my truth. It’s honest, and it brought me to a much happier place. I’m loving music again.”

Source : Sarah McLachlan

At its best, the venerable pop music tradition known as “the holiday album” can capture all the sentiments of the season: the warm glow of friendship and family, the bittersweet reflections on the year gone by, the hopeful anticipation of the new year ahead.

Sarah McLachlan has created a true holiday classic with Wintersong. The Arista recording artist imbues this splendid twelve-song collection-the first holiday album of her multi-platinum career-with peerless interpretive skill and exquisite musicianship. Set for nationwide release on October 17, 2006, Wintersong is Sarah’s first new studio album since Afterglow, released November 2003. Afterglow is certified double platinum for US sales of over two million and has sold more than four million copies worldwide, bringing Sarah’s worldwide career sales to more than 26 million albums.

Working with producer Pierre Marchand at her home studio in Vancouver, British Columbia, Sarah McLachlan has reinvented her chosen repertoire in ways that transform even the most familiar songs into special gifts. Like the soundtrack for a winter day that passes from snowy dawn to sunny afternoon to the chill of twilight, Wintersong creates its own flow of moods from start to finish.

“When I think about Christmas and everything it means to me,” says Sarah, “I picked songs to best represent the moods and great sense of nostalgia that I feel about the season. These are all songs I grew up listening to every Christmas.”

Wintersong begins with Sarah’s version of “Happy Xmas (War is Over)”. John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and the Plastic Ono Band first recorded this timeless declaration of peace in 1971, with the added voices of the Harlem Community Choir. For her recording, Sarah is joined by a children’s choir of students from the music school she personally funds and oversees in Vancouver.

(The Sarah McLachlan Music Outreach Program was founded in September 2003 to provide free music education classes to inner city youths whose school music programs have been hit by budget cuts. “As a kid,” Sarah recalls, “music saved my life; having that one thing that I knew I was good at made all the difference. It feels so good to be able to see their lives impacted. There’s hardly any joy comparable.”)

Sarah pays tribute to two leading Canadian singer-songwriters on Wintersong. “River” comes from Joni Mitchell’s 1971 album Blue, with the memorable lyrics “It’s coming on Christmas, they’re cutting down trees…” “Song For A Winter’s Night” was written by Gordon Lightfoot and originally recorded in 1967 for his second album, The Way I Feel. From the Great American Songbook, Sarah chose “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”, previously recorded by Elvis Presley and the Beach Boys, among others; and “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”, made famous by Judy Garland in the 1944 film, Meet Me in St. Louis.

Sarah explains: “I leaned towards the more melancholy, contemplative songs like “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”, “River” and “Song for a Winter’s Night” by Gordon Lightfoot because they are all very sad and bittersweet songs I’ve always loved to sing”.

“I am not into the commercial elements of Christmas at all. But I love the tradition of family and friends gathering together and the memories that the holidays create.”

No holiday album would be complete without its share of traditional Christmas songs. For Wintersong, Sarah selected “What Child Is This (Greensleeves)”, “O Little Town of Bethlehem”, “Silent Night”, the classically flavored “In A Bleak Mid Winter”, and a medley of “The First Noel/ Mary Mary”. The shimmering piano-based ballad “Wintersong”, was written by Sarah specifically for this album and was the result of her close working relationship with producer Pierre Marchand.

“Pierre and I have collaborated many times on songs, and here I was really struggling to finish the lyrics,” the singer admits with a bit of self-mocking humor.” “We went off to our separate corners and wrote out all sorts of stuff. Then we came together to hash out the details of the story, without bashing people over the head with obvious suffering – as I am prone to do! Pierre is great at getting the point of the song across subtly.”

Wintersong features guest appearances by Diana Krall, playing piano on “Christmas Time Is Here” (from the 1965 animated TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas); and Jim Creeggan of Barenaked Ladies, who plays double bass throughout the album. Wintersong was produced, engineered, and mixed by Pierre Marchand and mastered by Bob Ludwig.

Celebrating three years of renewed growth and self-realization for its creator, the music of Sarah McLachlan takes a joyous and festive turn on Wintersong. It’s a timely gift to her universe of fans, both new and old.

Source : My Space/Sarah McLachlan

Nettwerk recording artist Sarah McLachlan — one of the most gifted and acclaimed singer-songwriters of her generation – will celebrate the 20th anniversary of her multi-platinum recording career with the October 7, 2008 release of Closer: The Best Of Sarah McLachlan. The artist’s first career anthology, Closer contains thirteen classic tracks personally selected by Sarah McLachlan from her award-winning catalog, as well as two newly recorded and previously unreleased songs, “You Want Me” and “Don’t Give Up.” The new collection arrives two decades after the release of Touch, the 1988 debut album that paved the way for Sarah’s award-winning superstar career.

Here are some of the highlights of Closer: The Best Of Sarah McLachlan:
“Good Enough,” “Possession” – Both tracks are culled from Sarah McLachlan’s third Arista album, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy (released 10/22/1993), her commercial breakthrough and first Billboard Top 50 chart entry. “McLachlan never flinches, never takes the easy route of cliche and formula. This care and attention given to her art allows each song to stand strong in-dividually, making the whole an extraordinary collection.” (AllMusic.com)

“Building A Mystery” – Taken from the Diamond-certified (10X platinum) album Surfacing (released 7/15/1997), which entered the Billboard chart at Number Two, “Building A Mystery” won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal.

(“Last Dance,” a second track from Surfacing not included on Closer, was voted Best Pop Instrumental.)

“I Will Remember You” – In 1997, Sarah McLachlan founded and starred in the pioneering Lilith Tour – her quadruple-platinum album, Mirrorball (released 6/15/1999), was recorded live during the 1999 edition of Lilith Fair. “I Will Remember You” from Mirrorball earned Sarah her third career Grammy Award, again in the category of Best Female Pop Vocal.

“Fallen” – The opening track from Sarah’s double-platinum album Afterglow (released 11/4/2003), which reached Number Two on the Billboard Top 200. “Fallen” was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal and Afterglow was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album.

“You Want Me,” “Don’t Give Up” – Composed by Sarah McLachlan and co-produced by Sarah and longtime collaborator Pierre Marchand, these new recordings will be a special treat for fans who eagerly await the follow-up to Afterglow, Sarah’s last album of all-original material.

Source : Sarah McLachlan

On June 15, 2010, the Grammy Award–winning singer and songwriter Sarah McLachlan will release of Laws of Illusion. This is Sarah’s first studio album of new material in seven years, since the double–platinum Afterglow in 2003, and its twelve songs rank with the most compelling work ever cre¬ated by this gifted artist.

In the years between these two releases, Sarah has married, separated, and is raising two young daughters. These crucial life experiences have en¬riched her artistry and infused her new songs with the full range and complexity of adult emotions. In listening to Laws of Illusion, we can hear the strength of hard–earned independence; the trials of love won, lost, and found anew; and the infinite joys of living.

Because Sarah’s voice is so intimately familiar to so many of us, the experience of Laws of Illusion is a singular and special one. It’s like meeting an old friend again after long separation – and discovering that the passage of time and the accumulation of experience have only deepened rather than diminished that friendship.

For Sarah herself, this period was a time of profound change and renewed discovery. “I think when you go into a dark place for a while and you come out of it, the lightness you feel is…euphoric,” she told an Advocate.com interviewer in May 2010.

“My marriage collapsed a couple of years ago, and it was a long, dark road…Finally coming through that knowing that life is going to be okay, life will go on, and that there’s actually a possibility of love happening again is…just deliriously heady stuff.”

In Laws of Illusion, Sarah looks at love “from both sides now.” The opening track, “Awakenings,” moves on a subdued electronic pulse underpinning ethereal guitar lines and – as the singer soars into her upper register – demonstrates her ability to craft an unforgettable “hook” without hitting the listener over the head with it.

“Loving You Is Easy,” the first single from the album, is an upbeat, almost jaunty piano–based song, with a musical atmosphere perfectly matched to lyrics that describe the heady thrill of new love: “I’m alive and I’m on fire/Shot like a starburst into the sky…”

For many listeners, “Forgiveness” will be the centerpiece of Laws of Illusion. There is a wonderful subtlety in the arrangement, which builds inexorably from unaccompanied vocal–and–piano showcase to the layers of near–ambient guitar parts and finally a powerful coda completed by bass and drums. “Forgiveness,” says Sarah, “is about the loss of a relationship and drawing a line in the sand, saying: This is not good for me and I can’t do it anymore.”

Through the years, we had it all
The midnight whispers, the midday calls
This house of cards, it had to fall
You ask for forgiveness but you’re asking too much
’Cos I’ve sheltered my heart in a place you can’t touch…

Laws of Illusion is produced by Sarah’s long-time creative collaborator Pierre Marchand, and together they co–wrote a number of the compositions. The sole outside number, “Bring On The Wonder,” was written by English singer/songwriter Susan Enan. (In 2008, Sarah was featured on Susan’s recording of this song for the television soundtrack Bones.)

“Pierre and I have worked together for over twenty years,” says Sarah with a trace of awe. “I co-wrote a lot with him on this record, more so than in the past.”

“It’s an intimate thing to write [songs] with somebody, to reveal oneself like that. But I feel in¬credibly comfortable with him – there are no judgments. Pierre really contributed a lot to the lyrics of some of these songs. He could come up with just the right choice of words – simple but meaningful – to fit the story we were trying to tell.”

Sarah and Pierre worked quickly and efficiently at their respective home studios in Vancouver and Montreal, cutting all the basic tracks for six songs in just five days. “We were able to record ‘live on the floor,’ with myself and the musicians all right there in the room,” Sarah explains. “It was quick and exciting, and really a first for me to work that way.”

In addition to some familiar names from past McLachlan sessions, the supporting cast for Laws of Illusion includes the much–traveled drummer Matt Chamberlain, who’s played with everyone from Pearl Jam to John Mayer; and guitarist Colin Cripps, best known for his work with Canadian singer/songwriter Kathleen Edwards. Laws of Illusion will be available both as a standard 12–track compact disc and in a deluxe version including a five–song bonus DVD of live in-studio performances.

Coupled with the release of Laws of Illusion comes another landmark event in Sarah McLachlan’s career: her return to Lilith Fair, the all–female concert tour she founded in 1997 and where once again she’ll headline the main stage.

“Being a part of Lilith Fair was inspiring on so many levels,” says Sarah. “Besides discovering new music everyday and sharing the stage with an incredible array of talented women, it was wonderful to see established and new artists alike have the opportunity to play in front of much larger or more diverse audiences than usual.”

Between 1997 and 1999, Lilith Fair drew over two million fans and raised more than $7 million for charitable causes. Now, after an eleven–year hiatus, Lilith Fair is back. The 2010 edition commences June 27 in Calgary, Alberta with dates running through August 16 in Dallas, Texas. Beth Orton, Brandi Carlile, Carly Simon, Cat Power, the Go-Gos, Loretta Lynn, Jill Scott, and Mary J. Blige are just some of the artists who will join Sarah McLachlan for Lilith 2010.

“This summer,” Sarah promises, “is gonna be full on and fun.”

Source : Sarah McLachlan

Mirrorball was recorded during Sarah McLachlan’s 1998 tour in support of Surfacing and it captures a period of time in the evolution of Sarah’s musical career. So what does Sarah have to say about Mirrorball?

Question – One of the things that is a recognized commodity in the music business when someone puts out a live album, it’s usually for a couple of reasons. One, to buy that artist some time; a break from the business. And in some cases it’s also used to close one door and walk through another. So is it one or both for you?

Sarah – I’d say it’s all of the above and then some. Probably more the first one and more of something else. I definitely need some time in between records. I’m probably going to take a year off, if not more, over the next year and the year 2000. I’ll be writing but I’m not going to really pursue anything. Because of this I might lose some of my band members that I have right now. I think I have a really incredible and tight band. The main reason is wanting to document that and capture some of that – that great energy – you know, the fun that we’ve been having over the past couple of years of playing together, and I think they’re a really great band. That’s the main reason…definitely.

Question- Why these songs? Or did they choose themselves?

Sarah – They chose themselves. Versions became clear although I have to give a huge amount of credit to my husband because he was the one who spent hours and hours and weeks and weeks musically to find the best tracks and I listened and said yeah, that’s the best one. We set out to mix every single song…there are 23 songs and obviously you can’t have that many on a CD so the strong ones definitely leapt out.

Question – Out of all of these songs, which one gave you the most surprises, which one did you not think had the life that it ended up having?

Sarah – I Love You. I say that because I considered it not one of the strongest tracks live because it sounded like so much the record to me. I felt if you are going to do something live you should try to change it around a little bit. But when I heard it back, I really … it’s one of my favorite songs anyway and I think it’s different enough, and the musicians – even though we are remaining quite close to the way it sounds on the record – everybody brings a different thing to it. That one really stood out to me … this needs to go on the record even though it does sound similar to the original recorded version. It definitely moves away from it and emotionally I sing it quite differently as well.

Question – I guess I better ask you why Mirror Ball?

Sarah – I really don’t know, you know. I guess I don’t have a great answer for that except that I’m just addicted to mirror balls. I begged my lighting director to bring some on the road with us the last tour. He finally said, ‘okay, okay, we’ll do it.’ There is something about singing under a mirror ball when it’s going and the lights are down and that things moving on its axis, shining up the world in it’s kind of coca-cola moment kind of way . I don’t know, it’s really romantic and it’s rock ‘n’ roll, it’s glam, it’s all those amazing things that I think about when I think about music and the lifestyle.

Question – Do you ever think that you reveal too much of yourself?

Sarah – Sure I do…but at the same time I have to do what feels pure and honest to me when I’m writing and I can’t hold anything back. Certainly there are times I have struggled with thinking that something is too obviously about somebody. I want to try to protect people if I’m writing about somebody else. I’ve lived always very instinctively, especially in writing, in my music and I need to follow that; it’s served me very well so far.

Question – The last ten years… the decade was just amazing for you. It’s an amazing story.

Sarah – It’s been a wild ride. I have to say, in retrospect, I’ve loved every minute of it . Even the most painful moments … I’ve learned great things from everything.

Question- So what do you think the next ten will be like?

Sarah – Probably not as manic. I’m thirty-one now and I would like to have children fairly soon … sooner than later I guess. And that is obviously going to be completely life-altering and so it’s going to be hectic on a different level because I know kids bring on a whole new set of responsibilities and craziness and madness. It’s something that I am so excited by and I’m excited by what I’m going to write because of it and how it’s going to change my life and how it’s going to make me grow as a human being.

Source : Lilith Fair