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Sarah McLachlan

Year of Induction: 2024

Origin: Halifax, Nova Scotia

They told Sarah McLachlan that radio audiences wouldn’t listen to back-to-back recordings by women. She proved them wrong. Then they warned her that a music festival by and for women would never be successful. She proved them wrong again.

Sarah McLachlan’s reflective, piano-oriented ballads and poignant soprano vocals unleashed the stream of winning women songwriters who now populate our radios and devices. Her persistence changed the face of mainstream pop and parlayed her distinctive sound into multiple JUNO and Grammy awards and a dozen chart-topping albums.

Born in 1968 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, McLachlan undertook classical training in guitar, piano and voice, while at home hearing the folk and rock music of Joan Baez, Simon & Garfunkel, Cat Stevens, and Peter Gabriel. Her first foray into singing was in the new wave band The October Game, with whom she was noticed by a Nettwerk label exec while performing at Nova Scotia’s Dalhousie University. The label offered the 19-year-old a contract, upon which she relocated to Vancouver in 1988. The resultant debut album, “Touch,” launched her songwriting career.

Since that time, McLachlan has become a role model for female pop artists, breaking down barriers. No less an authority than Billboard.com has declared that McLachlan led “a wave of influential and successful singer-songwriters in the ’90s. The wave opened space in the industry for women songwriters in particular.”

McLachlan’s introspective, serene vocals and deeply personal lyrics in her second album, “Solace,” revealed an analytical inner world that earned her first JUNO nomination, as female vocalist of the year. Next, 1993’s atmospheric “Fumbling Toward Ecstasy” propelled her music into the U.S. market with the sinister Grammy-nominated single Possession.

Her streak continued with 1997’s “Surfacing,” winning two Grammys and sweeping the JUNOs with awards including album, songwriter and female vocalist of the year for such noteworthy singles as Building a Mystery, Sweet Surrender, Adia and Angel. “Surfacing” reigned supreme at No. 1 in Canada and No. 2 in the U.S.

McLachlan cemented her mark that year by establishing the iconoclastic, high-grossing all-female Lilith Fair tour, which ran until 1999. McLachlan’s radical idea was mocked as “mom music,” yet it was wildly commercially viable.

As McLachlan told the U.S.A.’s National Public Radio, “It was extremely frustrating. So the beginning of this was just born out of a desire to come together as a community. And it became this — we’re going to break down some barriers. We’re going to prove these guys wrong.”

Her winning streak continued with the Grammy-nominated album “Mirrorball” in 1999 and the single I Will Remember You, which delivered the Grammy for female pop vocal performance and the No. 1 spot on Canada’s adult contemporary charts.

McLachlan’s releases into the 2000s earned further prestigious nominations and awards. She was Canada’s 2004 songwriter of the year for “Afterglow.” “Wonderland” was JUNO’s 2017 adult contemporary album of the year, as was “Shine On” in 2015. She has received numerous Socan awards.

Songwriting for McLachlan is catharsis; it’s her therapy. It’s evident in her lyrics, which she takes great care over and which are rich with poetic imagery, personification, metaphor, and thought-provoking lyrical juxtapositions (as in Angel’s “sweet madness”, “glorious sadness”) in a reverie exposing her vulnerable core.

As to whether she plans what shape her songs will take during the writing process, McLachlan told American Songwriter.com “I never know what it’s going to be. I don’t go in saying, ‘I want to write a song about X’…. I just let things flow, or not, and just discover that way.” She works on new songs while walking in the woods, focussing on the natural world. Then she sits down to the piano.

It’s a process that undeniably has worked for her. McLachlan’s innovation and unmatched creativity has led the way for other Canadian women artists like Nelly Furtado, Amanda Marshall and Jann Arden, and for Americans like Jewel and superstar Taylor Swift.

About the value of songwriting as an art, McLachlan told American Songwriter.com: “It’s a valuable and important means of expression….People have stories that need to be told and need to be heard.”

McLachlan has amassed many honours, including the Order of Canada and the Order of British Columbia, and is in Canada’s Walk of Fame and the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. She is also noted for her philanthropy, including funding music education for Vancouver youth and supporting women’s shelters.

In 2002 McLachlan founded the non-profit Sarah McLachlan School of Music. The program provides high quality music education and mentorship free to children and youth facing various barriers to access. From an early age, music provided Sarah with the tools she needed to navigate the challenges she faced in her life, so she recognizes how important it is for every child to have those same opportunities. The School serves over 1,000 students each year at locations in Vancouver, Surrey and Edmonton.

by Betty Nygaard King

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