* I spent a good amount of time researching Sarah's life through magazine articles, books, etc. If there is anything that I've missed please let me know!
** This bio was a project I did so it may seem a bit weird, I'll edit it more when my whole page is complete, sorry!!
--Biography--
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.
