Sarah McLachlan

Sarah McLachlan built a devoted audience through her sensitive and melodic brand of pop songwriting after first appearing in 1988 with her platinum-selling debut in Canada and gold-certified release in the United States, Touch. After mounting a self-arranged outing alongside Paula Cole in 1996, she helped launch the Lilith Fair touring festival to showcase female performers in consecutive slots, a format then uncommon among concert organizers. The event’s opening edition, spotlighting artists such as Sheryl Crow, Tracy Chapman, Jewel, Fiona Apple, Emmylou Harris, and dozens more, became the highest-earning festival tour of 1997; its three-year duration underscored the substantial commercial appeal of women musicians. In the same late-1990s period McLachlan scored two U.S. Top Five singles with “Adia” and “Angel,” both drawn from her fourth studio album, the Canadian number-one and U.S. number-two Surfacing. Two of her three Grammy Awards arrived via “Building a Mystery” and a live rendition of “I Will Remember You.” Her run of North American Top Ten entries persisted with 2003’s Afterglow, 2006’s Wintersong, and 2014’s Shine On. After issuing the Juno-winning and Grammy-nominated holiday set Wonderland in 2016, she entered the Canadian Music Hall of Fame the following year and maintained an active touring schedule through the remainder of the decade.

Born January 28, 1968, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and adopted by the McLachlan family, Sarah Ann McLachlan studied voice, classical piano, and guitar from an early age. While still in high school she led the new-wave group the October Game, which supported Moev at a local concert; Nettwerk Records subsequently offered her a solo contract, yet her parents urged her to finish her education. After completing high school and a year at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design she accepted the label’s proposal in late 1987. She soon moved to Vancouver and began work on her first album. Issued in 1988, Touch reached number 61 in Canada and the lower reaches of the Billboard 200 before achieving platinum and gold certification, respectively, following its 1989 international reissue through Arista.

McLachlan supplied backing vocals on Moev’s 1990 album Head Down and supported the Grapes of Wrath on a national tour before scoring her initial Canadian hit with 1991’s “The Path of Thorns (Terms).” That track, which peaked at number 24, and another Top 30 single, “Into the Fire,” appeared on Solace, an album that entered Canada’s Top 20 and initiated her long partnership with producer Pierre Marchand.

After finishing a fourteen-month promotional trek in September 1992, McLachlan traveled to Cambodia and Thailand to contribute to the Canadian documentary World Vision, which examined poverty and child prostitution. The journey prompted her to withdraw to a remote house near Montreal, where she composed songs for her next project. Following six months of recording with Marchand, she released her most introspective work to date, Fumbling Toward Ecstasy, in late 1993. The album initially peaked at number 50 in the United States yet attained platinum status by the close of 1994 after 62 weeks on the Billboard 200. Atmospheric single “Possession,” which blended electronic textures with lyrics drawn from a stalker’s perspective, crossed into the Top 100 and earned strong alternative-radio rotation, reaching number 4 on that format chart; “Good Enough” also succeeded there, peaking at number 16. The Freedom Sessions, largely comprising alternate takes from Fumbling, appeared in 1995, the same year “I Will Remember You”—written as the theme for Brothers McMullen—entered Canada’s Top Ten. Rarities, B-Sides & Other Stuff, a compilation of non-album material and remixes, surfaced in Canada in 1996.

McLachlan commenced sessions for her fourth album, the major success Surfacing, in 1997; it debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 and led Canada’s album chart. With assistance from Nettwerk executives Dan Fraser and Terry McBride she simultaneously assembled Lilith Fair, a summer touring festival centered on emerging female artists. Multiple stages operated concurrently and rosters varied nightly, so the first edition encompassed more than seventy acts ranging from the Cardigans, Dido, and Juliana Hatfield to India.Arie, Cassandra Wilson, and Patty Griffin. Across its annual iterations from 1997 through 1999, Lilith Fair demonstrated the drawing power of female performers, topped festival revenue figures, and directed ten million dollars to charitable causes. During those years McLachlan placed four singles inside Canada’s Top Ten—“Building a Mystery” (a domestic number one), “Sweet Surrender,” “Adia” (Top Three in both countries), and the multi-territory hit “Angel”—all taken from Surfacing. After earning her first Grammy for the album’s “Last Dance” in the Best Pop Instrumental Performance category, “Building a Mystery” received the Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Surfacing itself secured four Juno Awards: Best Female Vocalist, Best Album, Single of the Year for “Building a Mystery,” and Songwriter of the Year shared with Pierre Marchand. The 1999 live collection Mirrorball, which chronicled her Lilith Fair performances and marked her first concert album, achieved multi-platinum status; its live version of “I Will Remember You” reached the Canadian Top Ten and number 14 in the United States, where it earned a Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 2000.

Following a brief career pause, McLachlan issued the successful Afterglow in 2003 along with the concert document Afterglow Live; both projects ultimately attained multi-platinum certification, while the studio album topped Canada’s chart and reached number two in the United States, collecting Juno Awards for Pop Album and Songwriter of the Year. She toured through 2005, appearing that June on the Philadelphia stage of Live 8, the multi-city commemoration of Live Aid and G8 summit protest organized by Bob Geldof. Later that year she released Bloom, her second remix collection, which drew primarily from Afterglow yet also contained a version of her 1989 track “Vox” and an unreleased collaboration with DMC and will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas.

Two albums arrived in 2006: Mirrorball: The Complete Concert, documenting the final night of her 1998 tour, and Wintersong, a set of traditional and contemporary holiday covers plus one original title track. Bolstered by a cover of Joni Mitchell’s “River” that climbed to number two in Canada and the U.S. adult-contemporary Top Ten, Wintersong led the Canadian album chart and achieved multi-platinum sales. She returned to the U.S. and Canadian Top Three with 2010’s Laws of Illusion, her first collection of original material in nearly seven years; the set featured “One Dream,” composed for the 2009 Vancouver Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony, and coincided with the revival of Lilith Fair after more than a decade’s absence.

McLachlan subsequently devoted several years to her philanthropic initiative, the Sarah McLachlan School of Music, which offered free instruction to at-risk youth in Vancouver. She reentered the studio in 2013 with longtime collaborator Pierre Marchand to craft an album shaped by the recent loss of her father. After departing Nettwerk/Arista, her label home of more than two decades, she signed with Verve and released Shine On in May 2014; the album debuted at number one in Canada and number four in the United States and later received the Juno for Best Adult Contemporary Album. Wonderland, her second Christmas album, appeared in late 2016, reaching number 12 in Canada, earning a Grammy nomination for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album, and securing another Juno for Best Adult Contemporary Album. In 2017 Sarah McLachlan was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, and she served as host of the Juno Awards in 2019.