True artistry runs deep. It is a story as unprecedented as the artist who made it happen. Nearly 4 years ago, she released her acclaimed Grammy-nominated album Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. The album quickly went Gold, then beyond Platinum on the strength of such extraordinary songs as "Good Enough," "Hold On" and "Possession" as well as her growing fanbase. Earlier this year, purely by word-of-mouth, radio stations rediscovered the track "Possession" and made the song a hit all over again, ultimately reaching a Hot 100 audience of over 10 million. Fumbling Towards Ecstasy soared past Double Platinum. This past summer, her Lilith Fair tour, an all-female festival of music's biggest performers including Jewel, Sheryl Crow, The Cardigans, Paula Cole, Tracy Chapman, Fiona Apple, Abra Moore, Indigo Girls, Lisa Loeb and more, became the most successful and acclaimed tour of the year. Now, her new album Surfacing is the next unprecedented chapter in the extraordinary career of Sarah McLachlan. Time Magazine called Surfacing "an elegant album with standout songs" and Entertainment Weekly raved, "Never have McLachlan's recordings sounded so alive." Already past Platinum, Surfacing exploded with the smash "Building A Mystery." It's the first powerful single from a deep, rich album. Sarah McLachlan is a once-in-a-lifetime artist. And Surfacing is her once-in-a-lifetime album. From: Jump; July 1998 The fair-est of them all. Sarah McLachlan is a muse with a message. Sure, her voice could make a grown man cry like a baby and her sweet face has been on the cover of practically every magazine in the universe, but Sarah McLachlan didn't always have it so good. Before she was folk-rock goddess and the brain behind the mother of all music festivals (that would be Lilith Fair), she was an awkward, frizzy-headed, crooked-toothed kid struggling with her own growing pains. Through it all, she found the courage and confidence to stay true to herself and her music, which is totally obvious if you've given the Grammy-winning songs on here latest album, Surfacing (Arista), a listen. Find out what else this Lilith flower is all about. A lot of women look up to you because your music inspires them. Who's your inspiration? "I admire anybody who has a lot of respect for themselves, a lot of humility and the power to basically do good things. On a personal level, the person I look up to most is my mom. She gave up her career for us kids. It was a different world back then. Women weren't expected to have careers; they were expected to stay home. Some people think creating the all-female Lilith Fair was sort of an "up yours" to guy-dominated festivals like Lollapalooza. What's the real story? "I would hate to say I organized Lilith Fair for reactionary reasons [like because other festivals excluded women artists], although it certainly did come into play. Mostly it stemmed from a desire to put on a great music festival, and there are so many women out there making great music. I wanted to celebrate that the music world is finally opening up to women." Finally is right. You've been singing and writing for 13 years. A lot of people would've given up or burned out after such a long haul. What's your secret? "I have a lot of confidence in who I am, because a large part of my songwriting is figuring out who the hell I am. There are so many perceptions and expectations placed on you in the music industry, and unless you're really strong and believe in yourself, you can get pulled in directions that aren't necessarily true to who you are." That's hard to do, especially when you're growing up and everyone is trying to fit in with what's cool. Have you always been so self-assured? " No way. I had pretty low self-esteem. My own lack of self-worth and self-confidence was the biggest obstacle I had to overcome. I finally realized that I was good at something- art and music. That really fueled me." Speaking of endurance, you're the only performer in Lilith Fair who headlines every show on the tour. How do you deal? "I'm a big believer in having time to myself. When you're out on the road, you have no privacy. I've finally gotten to a point where I can say, 'I'm going to take two hours in the afternoon that are just for me.' When I'm home it's a really different thing. People ask me 'Where are you going on vacation? and it's like, 'I'm going home [to Vancouver, BC. Canada].' It's my sanctuary." So what do you do during your "me time"? "I work out pretty much every day. It's really great for my energy level. I bought a Stairmaster and a stationary bike, and I had cases built for them so I could take them on the road when I'm touring. They're set up in one of the dressing rooms every day. It's amazing. It's great meditation, because I do nothing but push myself and get really mindless. It's goof therapy." What will happen when you finally stop touring? "I'm going to float - I have absolutely no plans at all." If you missed last year's Lilith Fair, you can still experience it on the live double-CD, Lilith Fair: A Celebration of Women in Music (Arista). Don't miss this summer's second annual Lilith Fair, featuring Erykah Badu, Natalie Merchant, Bonnie Raitt, Missy Elliot, Sinead O'connor, and more. For tour dates see www.lilithfair.com or www.aristarec.com. From: San Francisco Chronicle; April 26- May 2, 1998 By: Beth Winegarner A Souvenir From Lilith Fair *** Various Artists Lilith Fair: A Celebration of Women in Music The all-female Lilith Fair was last summer's hottest tour, so it's interesting that the compilation CD, "A Celebration of Women in Music," is pitched at a slightly lower temperature. The two-disc live set, due out Tuesday, is a modest collection of performances that avoids hits in favor of songs that better convey the essence of the artist. Take the Cardigans' gritty "Been It," for instance, or Meredith Brooks' "Wash My Hands" with its shades of Patti Smith. Elders are well represented on the album, including Emmylou Harris with "Going Back to Harlan" and Shawn Colvin shimmering on "Trouble." Patty Griffin's "Cain" invokes Bonnie Raitt, and Susanna Hoffs offers a nod to her years with the Bangles in a bare-bones rendition of "Eternal Flame." International singers are honored as well, with the French Canadian Autour de Lucie's "Sur Tes Pas" and the yearning flamenco tones of Lhasa's "El Payande." Yungchen Lhamo's a cappella "Lama Dorje Chang" is completely arresting. "A Celebration of Women in Music won't please folks who were dismayed by the tour's folkie emphasis, but for those who enjoyed their time at Lilith, the discs are a perfect souvenir. From: The California Aggie; May 21, 1998 By: Cary Rodda This double-CD set is subtitled "A Celebration of Women in Music," and that it is. This record features the various female artists from last year's hit megatour, Lilith Fair. Even with a show of these proportions, some significant female artists were left out for whatever reasons. These discs do a good job of mixing both well known and deserving-of-more-recognition artists. Of the better known artists' songs, three really stand out. Suzanne Vega's "Rock in This Pocket," Emmylou Harris' "Going Back to Harlan" and especially Joan Osborne's "Ladder." All three of these performers grab you right away. Osborne in particular demands your attention with her bluesy song and arresting voice. Although none of the performers were true unknowns, some of the lesser knowns showed they may be forces to be reckoned with. On "Four-Leaf Clover," Abra Moore draws you in with her alluring singing. Dayna Manning gets inside your head with her charmingly bitter-sweet "I Want." Other great performances are turned in by the likes of Victoria Williams, Meredith Brooks, Lhasa and Patty Grffin. This records is more than just a souvenir for Lilith attendees. It truly is a celebration. From: Jane; May 1998 By: Bill Van Evol Paula Cole had just won a Grammy for Best New Artist, so it was only appropriate that she phoned up double Grammy-winner (and Lilith Fair high priestess) Sarah McLAchlan, who took Paula on a pre-Lilith tour when she was nobody and helped make her a star. It was inappropriate that we listened, but what the hell. Why Sarah gave Paula her big break. Sarah: I was trying to remember the other day, um, when did we first mmet? Paula: It was the San Francisco show and your Fumbling Towards Ectasy tour, and I remember that was the first show and- S: I probably had my head up my butt. P: It was sold out, and I just remember feeling a little nervous cause I - I was just feeling extremely thankful, you know, that I had the opportunity to do it. I really needed a break at that time because my record companyt had gone down the tubes, and I couldn't find my record anywhere. And then you just organically believed in the music. So I was nervouse and I remember coming offstage, and you and your entire band and crew were stage left., applauding. I thought it was so swet and supportive and kind, and I was kind of blown away by that. S: It was [for] totally selfish reasons. I heard your music and actually saw you live in Boulder, Colo, and you were absolutely amazing- really powerful and passionate. I just thought that I'd love to get you up there and hear your music every night. Whether touring sucks P: My mom says it's like I've gone off to war, that she never sees me, and I'm sure from her perspective it is like that. It's wildly inntense. You go unsupported emotionally for long periods of time-monthes or years-without seeing your family or your close friends, or maybe you see the person you're having a relationship with once a month. It forces you to become more stoic, more kind of spiritually strong in your nomadicism. But that is good, too. I find that in the end, I love my independence. In the end I'm not afraid of it, and I need it; I actually crave the road after a while. So it has both things. As you know, I'm not married, but I have a major person. He doesn't usually come along because he has so much of his own life, but occasionally, here and there. S: But Paula, you're coming to Lilith this summer, aren't ya, darlin'? P: Yeah, a couple of weeks, yeah. S: Excellent. Om P: You can do yoga anywhere, any hotel room; lay down a shet or some towels. I find it keeps me flexible, and it just helps my life-everything from my posture to my diet to more positive thinking to humility... S: I gotta get into that. P: It's really life-changing. It's wonderful. The Lilith forecast S: Well, let's see. The first week, which is actually the only fully confirmed, check's-in-the-mail kind of jobby is: myself, Natalie Merchant, Sheryl Crow, the Indigo Girls, Sinead O'Connor, Erykah Badu... I think Missy Elliot's confirmed for sure, as well as [for] later in the month; and you. It's been easier allaround. It's been easier not only with the artists- the artists were never really a problem... There was a lot of hesitance from labels or managers, or maybe promoters and stuff- but definitely this year it's been much, much easier to get people interested in it. I mean, it's a really pretty darn friendly and uncompetitive environment, to the point where the Indigo Girls and Sheryl Crow were going, Oh, we both really want these dates," and the Indigo Girls were all, "Well, Sheryl, you can go second-to-last this night, and how about we go second-to-last the next night?" Everybody's really into making whatever everyone else wants work. To Lilith's critics S: At this point, F--- off. I have very little patience left aymore in discussing what Lilith isn't. I'm walking a hard line because I'm the representative for it. And when I'm face-to-face with interviews and I get asked the question, it's always, "Why isn't it more like this..." And that's my own thing that I have to deal with0not to see the negative side of the question but to turn it into something positive; just like you were saying, Paula. P: Yeah, I was really pissed off at first when we [nominees Paula, Sarah and Shawn Colvin] all had to play together [in a Lilith-y medley] at the Grammys. We want the world to acknowledge us as artists, regardless of gender. But I always have to take the higher road, because I know in 20 years if I'm looking back, I'll know that negativity never brought me anywhere... That minute and a half did me more good than I could have possibly imagined. S: But sometimes early in the morning, you're just not as diplomatic as you should be. Give us a break! And then they go, "Oh, my God, You're certainly From: USA Today; May 22, 1998 By: Edna Gundersen Lilith, according to Jewish folklore, was Adam's first wife. Dumped and banished for refusing to be submissive, she returned as a vengeful ghost to haunt and unsettle Eden. Likewise, the proudly female Lilith Fair began as an idea scorned and ridiculed, only to rise triumphant and render the touring industry's male canon ... well, impotent. Last year's inaugural Lilith raked in roughly $16.4 million and was declared 1997's top festival tour - ahead of Lollapalooza, H.O.R.D.E. and similar boys' clubs. (It was 16th when ranked along with solo tours) Bean counters expect bigger grosses from this year's 47-city trek, launching June 19 in Portland, Ore. Rather that sinking to nyah-nyah-nyah bragging, the festival's organizers are diplomatically savoring revenge on a music business that traditionally nixed all-female marquees and unmarketable. "On a reactionary level, it was absolutely empowering to succeed after hearing so many people say you can't do this, it won't work," says fest founder Sarah McLachlan who again fills the headlining slot. "In my heart and mind, those attitudes never made sense to me. But we were an unknown entity last year, and I don't really blame promoters for hesitating or artists for not wanting to be involved. It's a huge organization feat to make something like this run smoothly. It could have been terrible, but it wasn't "Not terrible" isn't exactly a victory cry. Loath to crow, McLachlan down plays her role in Lilith's ascendancy and credits the allure of such '97 co-stars as Tracy Chapman, Suzzane Vega and Jewel. But she takes pride in bucking the system "It was thrilling to look at an audience last summer and think, me and 25,000 people can't be wrong," says McLachlan 30. "It exceeded every expectation I ever had. It was tons and tons of work, but really rewarding. And so much fun." Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to a homemaker and a marine biologist, McLachlan was singed at age 19 and released her first album, "Touch," a year later. A supernova in her native Canada, she enjoyed a lower profile here, building a cult following that widened with 1994's "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy" and 1997's "Surfacing." By her own admission, the classically trained guitarist was an unlikely candidate to spearhead a pop music revolution. But after music execs repeatedly rejected her proposals to tour with other women, the frustrated McLachlan drafted her dream team. Hype and girls-night-out novelty status boosted Lilith's profile last year. A golden track record and keener media attention now fuel momentum, along with such promotional ammo as a new book. From Lilith to Lilith Fair (Madrigal Press, $19.95), and a 25-song memento culled from last year's performances. The two-CD "Lilith Fair: A Celebration of Women in Music" premiered at No. 24 in Billboard and sold 86,000 copies in two weeks. The 1998 sequel has greater geographic reach (47 cities compared with last year's 35), expanded concourse attractions, a 14-city talent search and hefty sponsors including Levi's, Starbucks, Volkswagen and VH1, which plans extensive tour coverage. Nonprofit groups, including the Breast Cancer Fund, Planned Parenthood and the RAINN sexual assault hot line established by Tori Amos, will receive $1 from each ticket sold. (Lilith shelled out $700,000 to charities last year.) The main attraction is the blockbuster talent pool. Rotating lineups are drawn from a roster that includes Joan Osborne, Paula Cole, Bonnie Raitt, Sheryl Crow, Emmylou Harris, the Indigo Girls, Lisa Loeb, Sinead O'Conner, Erykah Badu, Liz Phair, Natile Merchant, Me'Shell NdegeOcello, Meredith Brooks, Tracy Chapman, Lauren Hill, Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliot, Luscious Jackson, Neneh Cherry and Queen Latifah. About 60% of the 50-plus performers are returnees. And they're coming back with enhanced credibility; Lilith grads walked off with 25 Grammys in February. Despite rosy projections for Lilith, McLachlan isn't expecting a cakewalk. "I went into it last year with an open heart and open mind, without thinking about how many tickets we'd sell," she says. "It was our year of innocence and growth, and I was naive and overwhelmed. I'm now painfully aware of the bottom line. The shows are so expensive to produce that we have to sell 34,000 tickets at some venues to break even. I don't want to dwell on that." Changing their tune She's heartened by increased cooperation this year. Artists who resisted coming aboard last time lobbied hard to get on the bill. Promoters who scoffed at the notion of a testosterone-free ticket eagerly lined up this year. "I don' know if Lilith changed their attitudes, but it certainly changed their pocketbooks and their tune," McLachlan says. "They know they can make money on this little creature that grew wings. For consumers, Lilith means more bang for the buck (a $25 to $35 ticket buys 11 acts). For the players, the professional payoffs - press coverage, a broader audience - seems less enticing than the opportunities for girl power and girl talk. "It's beautiful to make friends with other women," says Paula Cole, a fixture on last year's stage. "It's wonderful to connect and unify and not feel like such a minority." Newcomer Margo Timmins, singer for Cowboy Junkies, delights in knowing her male bandmates will be out numbered. "I'm praying the conversation goes beyond hockey and cars," she says. First-timer Bonnie Raitt, the tour's self confessed den mother, looks forward to creative cross-pollination. "I hope there's some interplay between different acts," says Raitt, who embraces Lilith more for its diversity that its feminine distinction. "I don't think it's such a good idea to offer three or four acts that play the exact same kind of music. I'm glad to see such a range of talent." McLachlan is game. In Lilith's maiden journey, the initially shy participants eventually got chummy enough to collaborate on stage. "It takes a while for things to warm up," McLachlan says, 'but once everybody opened up, it was amazing. I felt like a kid when I went into Emmylou Harris' dressing room and said, 'Do you want to sing together?' and she said yes! "I an such a big fan. To watch her perform is a lesson in grace and pride. She's beautiful. I'm looking forward to the same thing with Bonnie Raitt, who has this down to a fine art." New soul-rocker Rebekah, likewise, says she's grateful for the chance to learn from Cole, Raitt and others she admires. "My father's going to keel over when I tell him Bonnie's on the tour," she says breathlessly, adding with a laugh, "I need to be around women and be feminine again. After being with the boys in my band, my language is so dirty right now." The exposure should benefit her career. "Nobody know who I am yet. I keep hearing, 'Who's that black girl with the funky hair?" It's like I belong But Rebekah sees a bigger reward in Lilith's cozy sisterhood. "As part of Lilith, I feel comfortable and welcome, like I belong here. Sarah has been so sweet." Rising star Meredith Brooks, back for Round 2, says Lilith's seasoned players offered friendship and guidance. "These girls just opened their arms to me," she says. "I was still trying to figure out how to sleep on the tour bus. I'm used to being on tour with 10 guys, so Lilith was a very calming environment." What? No rivalries? No vicious gossip? No cat fights? "There's this weird false assumption that we might be catty or competitive," says another Lilith alumna, the very pregnant Shawn Colvin. Impressed by last year's roster (and that catered meals), she'll return for two shows in June. "The press pits us against each other. I used to be scared of Liz (Phair), but I'm not now. She's really nice." McLachlan took some shots last year for headlining every show and assembling a homogenous roster of campfire-girl singer/songwriters. None of the criticism came from within Lilith's ranks. "The girls defended me and supported me continually," she says. "Even though the media (were) incredibly supportive and generally positive, the questions at the press conferences mostly focused on what Lilith Fair should have been or wasn't. I felt like I needed to justify it every step of the way. Sheryl Crow stepped in at one point and said 'Look, this is her thing, and if she wants to do this, she can!' It was really nice." As for any ill will toward McLachlan getting top billing over more established acts, the Lilith ringleader says she tried to coax Tracy Chapman into the slot. "I would be happy not to headline, but nobody else wants it," she says. "It was intimidating going on after Tracy, who was doing one hit after another. Luckily there was never a problem, because the audience was so respectful." Hmmm, could that be due to a heavy representation of the fairer sex? A paucity of Y chromosomes in Lilith crowds prompted detractors to dismiss the tour as a musical petticoat junction, a goddess retreat, or worst of all, a man-hating convention. McLachlan has struggled to ensure a guy-friendly atmosphere. "You can only hope that men give the show a chance," the singer says wearily. "It's just so sad that any time women get together, some men feel very threatened by it." But Lilith's purpose is to celebrate pop music's female talent, not provoke a gender war, McLachlan says,. Rather than proffer a radical manifesto or rail against sexism in the industry, Lilith takes an inclusive stance, and its constituents aren't above laughing at themselves. "I'd like to test the theory of our periods all getting synchronized, "Raitt jokes. Liz Phair's retort: "I'd hate to be at the PMS show." Face it, these grrrls just wanna have fun. From: Entertainment Weekly Once upon a more militant time, when they held the odd "women's music" festival, they spelled womyn with a y. No such matriarchal mandate, though, for Lilith Fair, which dares present the peculiarity of an all-female lineup and then ask, Why ask why? Festival founder Sarah Mclachlan, 30, is cheerfully short on answers, even on the eve of Lilith's second coming. The annual outing wasn't conceived, she says, to prove a point about the commercial firepower of chick singers (though last summer's $16.5 million gross certainly hammered that home). No sociopolitical banners, either: Getting pop's most talented frontwomen together--and leaving the men to slave labor--just sounded like... "fun." Hell, the Spice Girls have more of an agenda than that. Fancy- and agitprop-free or not, Lilith was at the crux of a cultural revolution last year, giving girl power a grown-up face and the lie to the idea that the public prefers its female singers in novel isolation, not en masse. It didn't hurt that the vast majority of young white "adult alternative" artists worth giving a hoot about happen these days to be missing a crucial Y chromosome. But if Lilith was almost as definable by genre as gender in '97, this time McLachlan is mixing it up, adding more hip-hop and alt-rock to the 57-date fest's ever-morphing lineup and putting newcomers like Erykah Badu, Luscious Jackson, and Lauryn Hill alongside such holdovers as Indigo Girls, Shawn Colvin, and Lisa Loeb. Homogeneity was hardly on the menu when we solicited a few key divas for an EW roundtable, either. On her new album, Ophelia, and especially its first single, "Kind and Generous," Natalie Merchant, 34, manages to make every virtue Bill Bennett ever extolled sexy, even a little subversive. Meanwhile, Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott, reigning queen of hip-hop, made bumpin' a sport for both sexes on last year's Supa Dupa Fly. Paula Cole, 30, got smirkyfor one hit ("Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?") but otherwise fervently mines the ideological passion pit. The far droller Liz Phair, 31, was frank about sex and boredom back when Elizabeth Wurtzel was a mere gleam in her publisher's eye--though, after a long layoff that found her becoming a mother, Phair's August release, whitechocolatespaceegg, may be shocking for not being so shocking. So join the girls of summer as they sit down for a chat with senior writer Chris Willman in advance of the tour's June 19 kickoff in Portland, Ore., and learn why Sarah has her hand down her Levi's, which participant is in gravest danger of having nude etchings pop up on the Net, and why Bob Dylan might not be welcome even if her were just like a woman. EW: There's no truth to the rumor Ginger Spice quit the band so she could come join up with Lilith Fair, is there? ALL: (Stunned silence) MERCHANT: I had a dream about the Spice Girls last night, and I've never even seen or heard them. McLACHLAN: How have you managed that? Merchant: I live under a rock, basically. But in the dream I was in Italy and I went into the courtyard of this church called the Cathedral of the Two Martyrs, and there was this fresco of these two men who'd been decapitated, and Jesus was holding their heads in his hands. And all of a sudden I heard these girls running on the roof, squealing "I'm naked! I'm naked!" Little bits of terra-cotta were falling off. Someone said, "Look, it's the Spice Girls!" That's how I knew who they were. PHAIR: That's brilliant. Can I interpret? MERCHANT: Please. PHAIR: Jesus is holding the heads of two martyrs--a very Judeo-Christian, patriarchal thing--and here come the Spice Girls, blowing the image of this somber scene, defying convention and forgetting about the rules of this solemn place-- MERCHANT: Destroying the facade. PHAIR : --and throw that against this Lilith/gender thing. MERCHANT: A couple of 'em still had just their wet panties on. "I'm not naked yet!" COLE: Well, Ginger Spice is naked in Playboy and Penthouse. MERCHANT: I used to model for a college art class when I was going to school, and it was funny, because when I joined {10,000 Maniacs} a couple of years later, the bass player told me that his uncle had been in the class. He said, "I went to his house once and he had all these drawings of this naked woman who looks a lot like you!" COLE: Have you ever been in a photo shoot where the photographer eggs you on to show your breasts? PHAIR: Totally. Horrifying. When I was really young and didn't know better... And what's worse is that I had the worst makeup of any photo shoot I've ever had in my entire life, and suspenders over my nipples, and that was it. And there were 20 people sitting around having drinks watching. McLACHLAN: Or you're lying on the floor and your boob pops out of your dress, and no one wants to tell you. COLE: I did a shoot for US magazine, and I show up and there's a little pile of rags that I was supposed to wear. It was one of the first photo shoots I did for This Fire, my second album. I went along with it, but I was so mortified... I'm lying on a table filled with cheese and fruit, like "You can eat me, too." McLACHLAN: I remember that shoot. You looked beautiful. And yeah, he asked me to expose my breast, so I did, and I now want to kill him... If you ever, ever want to say no, say no! EW: And yet there are two women here--Paula and Liz--who've posed partially or wholly nude for album covers. That wasn't anyone else's idea but your own, right? COLE: I didn't even want to be on my first record cover. I was in a fragile time in my life. I cut my hair really short; I was androgynous; I didn't want to be sexualized--I wanted it to be about the music. And I had a very aristocratic {label head} who wouldn't let me not be on the cover. He'd always pick a sexy picture, and I was choosing artistic picture

Back to my main page


This page hosted by GeoCitiesGet your own Free Home Page