Canada Day Focus: Sarah McLachlan Back with New Album, Lilith Fair

OK, Canada Day is pretty much over (except for people on the West Coast), but thought I'd post this late article on one of the most successful musicians from the Great White North, Sarah McLachlan. She's just started performing on the revival of Lilith Fair (which, appropriately enough, played a show in Vancouver on Canada Day).

It's been 10 years since McLachlan first started Lilith Fair, which went on for three consecutive summers (she says she never planned for it to go on indefinitely), and there have been a lot of changes since then: for the music industry and for McLachlan.

Downloads (legal and illegal) are the biggest means of music distribution these days. As for McLachlan, she is now divorced and has two daughters. With the girls getting a bit older, she and her Lilith co-producers felt the time was right to resurrect Lilith Fair. And McLachlan is back with a new album, "Laws of Illusion," which dropped on June 15th.

It's definitely a challenging economic environment in which to stage a cross-country North American tour. The promoters announced today that 10 Lilith Fair dates had to be cancelled; others had previously been moved to smaller venues. (Fortunately the Lilith concert I'm attending, the July 31st New York/New Jersey show, is still a go.)

You can find a live session McLachlan did for Starbucks above (22 minutes). And you can read an article and see a bit of discussion and singing she did for the Wall Street Journal's "Speakeasy" blog.

Sarah McLachlan has gotten a lot of other press attention, too, which is good to see: you'll find a Los Angeles Times article on McLachlan here, and one from Reuters here, titled "Sarah McLachlan Resurfaces With New Album, Tour."

Good luck to Sarah McLachlan on Lilith Fair 2010, and Happy Canada Day!

Music News: Roger Waters 2010 Tour, Supergrass Breaks Up, Lilith Fair Sched Complete, CD Baby & MySpace Connect, No Cream Reunion, More

* Former Pink Floyd member Roger Waters will tour in 2010 to perform the band's album "The Wall" live in its entirety. You'll find Roger Waters tour dates here.

* U.K. pop group Supergrass is breaking up after almost two decades together. They produced six studio albums, according to the linked article, including the anthemic "Alright."

* Online music retailer CD Baby is partnering with MySpace Music to sell tunes from CD Baby artists on the widely used social-networking site. Though MySpace has lost momentum to Facebook and Twitter as a go-to social-networking destination, it's still a potent force for musicians and fans to reach each other.

* Lilith Fair has announced its complete list of 2010 tour dates. The all-women touring festival, begun by Sarah McLachlan a decade ago, returns this summer. McLachlan is once again headlining every event on the tour, which otherwise has a different line-up of 11 performers at each date.

* Jack Bruce, best known as the bassist for 1960s supergroup Cream (with Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker) and West, Bruce, & Laing, has confirmed that Cream will never reunite again. Which makes me very glad that I saw them in 2005 at Madison Square Garden. Even though that ticket was the most money I've ever spend for a concert ticket, it was well worth it.

* And finally, the highly influential Malcolm McLaren died last week, and KCRW music librarian Eric J. Lawrence offers a brief remembrance here. McLaren is best know for managing the Sex Pistols, but he also recorded his own albums and had a hand in fashion and cinema.