Sarah McLachlan

Sarah Ann McLachlan OC OBC (born January 28, 1968) is a Canadian singer-songwriter. As of 2015, she had sold over 40 million albums worldwide. McLachlan's best-selling album is Surfacing (1997), 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.

McLachlan was born on January 28, 1968, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The daughter of Judy James, McLachlan was raised by her adoptive parents, Jack, an American-born marine biologist, and Dorice McLachlan. The family also included two older adopted brothers, Stewart and Ian. As a child, Sarah was a member of Girl Guides of Canada, participating in Guiding programs.

McLachlan played music from a very young age, beginning with the ukulele when she was four. She studied classical guitar, classical piano, and voice at the Maritime Conservatory of Music through the curriculum of The Royal Conservatory of Music. At 17, while she was still a student at Queen Elizabeth High School, in Halifax, she fronted a short-lived rock band called the October Game, whose members also included drummer Creighton Doane. 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.

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 that 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.

In 1994, McLachlan was sued by Uwe Vandrei, an obsessed fan from Ottawa, who alleged that his letters to her had been the basis of the single "Possession". The lawsuit was challenging for the Canadian legal system since Vandrei was an admitted stalker whose acknowledged goal in filing the lawsuit was to be near McLachlan. Precautions were taken to ensure McLachlan's safety if she had to be in the same location as Vandrei. Before the trial began, Vandrei was found dead in an apparent suicide.

McLachlan married her drummer, Ashwin Sood, in Jamaica in 1997. In December 2001, while McLachlan was pregnant with her first child, her mother died from cancer. McLachlan gave birth to her daughter, India, in Vancouver on April 6, 2002. Five years later, she gave birth to her second daughter Taja, also in Vancouver, on June 22. McLachlan announced her separation from Sood in September 2008, and they divorced the same year.

In 2014, when asked what religion she practices, she answered, "I don't adhere to any particular religion. I view the concept of God as an energy that we all are part of and share. If I had any spiritual leanings, it would be towards Buddhism. But again, I follow my own path most of my life."

The signing with Nettwerk prompted McLachlan to move to Vancouver, British Columbia. There she recorded her first album, Touch, in 1987. The album received both critical and commercial success; it also includes the song "Vox". During this period she also contributed to an album by Moev, provided vocals on Manufacture's "As the End Draws Near", and embarked on her first national concert tour as an opening act for the Grapes of Wrath.