Sarah McLachlan | |
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McLachlan after a performance at JFK Airport, July 2010
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Background information | |
Birth name | Sarah Ann McLachlan |
Born |
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada |
28 January 1968
Genres | Pop, rock |
Occupation(s) | Singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, painter, executive producer |
Instruments | Vocals, piano, keyboard, guitar, banjo, ukulele, harp |
Years active | 1988–present |
Labels | Nettwerk, Arista, Verve |
Website | sarahmclachlan.com |
Sarah Ann McLachlan, OC, OBC (born 28 January 1968) is a Canadian musician, singer-songwriter, pianist and guitarist. Known for her emotional ballads and mezzo-soprano vocal range, as of 2009, she has sold over 30 million albums worldwide. McLachlan's best-selling album to date is Surfacing, for which she won two Grammy Awards (out of four nominations) and four Juno Awards. In addition to her personal artistic efforts, she founded the Lilith Fair tour, which showcased female musicians on an unprecedented scale. The Lilith Fair concert tours took place from 1997 to 1999, and resumed in the summer of 2010. On 6 May 2014, she released her first album of original music in four years, titled Shine On.
Sarah McLachlan was born on 28 January 1968, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and placed with the McLachlan family who later legally adopted her. As a child, she took voice lessons, along with studies in classical piano and guitar. When she was 17 years old and still a student at Queen Elizabeth High School in Halifax, she fronted a short-lived rock band called The October Game. One of the band's songs, "Grind," credited as a group composition, can be found on the independent Flamingo Records release Out of the Fog and the CD Out of the Fog Too. It has yet to be released elsewhere. Her high school yearbook predicted that she was "destined to become a famous rock star."
Following The October Game's first concert at Dalhousie University opening for Moev, McLachlan was offered a recording contract with Vancouver-based independent record label Nettwerk by Moev's Mark Jowett. McLachlan's parents insisted she finish high school and complete one year of studies at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design before moving to Vancouver and embarking on a new life as a recording artist. She finally signed to Nettwerk two years later before having written a single song. A mutual acquaintance introduced her to her birth mother when she was nineteen. McLachlan did not seek her out and was ambivalent about meeting her.