By Mariana Smithfield
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
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 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.
Lilith Fair
In 1996, McLachlan became frustrated with concert promoters and radio stations that refused to feature two female musicians in a row. Bucking conventional industry wisdom, she booked a successful tour for herself and Paula Cole. At least one of their appearances together – in McLachlan’s home town, on September 14, 1996 – went by the name “Lilith Fair” and included performances by McLachlan, Cole, Lisa Loeb, and Michelle McAdorey, formerly of Crash Vegas.
The next year, McLachlan founded the Lilith Fair tour, taking Lilith from the medieval Jewish legend that Lilith was Adam‘s first wife.
In 1997, Lilith Fair, featuring McLachlan as one of the headlining acts, garnered a $16 million gross, making it the top-grossing of any touring festival. Among all concert tours for that year, it was the 16th highest grossing. Lilith Fair tour brought together two million people over its three-year history and raised more than $7 million for charities. It was the most successful all-female music festival in history, one of the biggest music festivals of the 1990s, and helped launch the careers of several well-known female artists. Subsequent Lilith Fairs followed in 1998 and 1999 before the tour was discontinued.
Nettwerk CEO and Lilith Fair co-founder Terry McBride announced that the all-female festival would make its return in mid-2010 in Canada, the United States, and Europe. A list of 36 North American shows was released. But poor ticket sales, financial problems, and headliners’ withdrawing out of fear of not being paid caused 13 of the shows to be cancelled. The two-week European tour never materialized.
TODAY’S ALMANAC
Question of the Day
Advice of the Day
Home Hint of the Day
Word of the Day
Puzzle of the Day
Born
- Alexander Mackenzie (Canadian statesman) –
- Henry Morton Stanley (journalist & explorer) –
- Jose Marti (Cuban poet) –
- Artur Rubinstein (pianist) –
- Jackson Pollock (artist) –
- Susan Sontag (novelist) –
- Susan Howard (actress) –
- Mikhail Baryshnikov (ballet dancer) –
- Sarah McLachlan (musician) –
- Joey Fatone (singer & actor) –
- Elijah Wood (actor) –
Died
- W. B. Yeats (poet) –
- Christa McAuliffe (selected to be the first teacher in space) –
- Harold “Red” Grange (football player) –
- Helen Battles Sawyer Hogg (American-born Canadian astronomer ) –
- Astrid Lindgren (children’s author who wrote Pippi Longstocking) –
- Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsch (football player) –
- Jim Capaldi (musician) –
- Cicely Tyson (actress) –
Events
- The Yale Daily News became the first daily, college newspaper in the U.S.–
- Jose Miguel Gomez was inaugurated as president of Cuba and the U.S. provisional government withdrew–
- The U.S. Coast Guard was established by Congress, combining the Life Saving Service and the Revenue Cutter Service–
- Manitoba became first province to grant women suffrage–
- Aaron Copland’s instrumental suite, Quiet City, premiered in New York–
- Leonard Bernstein conducted the premiere of his first symphony, Jeremiah, at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania–
- An African American student, Harvey Gantt, entered Clemson College in South Carolina, thus breaking the barrier in the last state to hold out against integration. Harvey later became the first African-American mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina.–
- Barnaby Jones premiered on television–
- U.S. army officer, James Dozier, was rescued from his Red Brigade captors in Padua, Italy–
- The space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after take-off, killing all seven crew members, including teacher Christa McAuliffe–
- The Canadian Supreme Court ruled federal restrictions on abortions violate the constitution–
- An 8-pound 12-ounce redeye bass was caught in the Apalachicola River in Florida–
Weather
- Snowstorm left 36 inches in northern Virginia–
- Knickerbocker Storm’s 28 inches of snowfall crushed Washington theater of the same name, killing over 100 movie patrons–
- Forty-six degrees below zero F at First Connecticut Lake–
- -132 degrees F windchill, in Pelly Bay, Northwest Territories–
COURTESY www.almanac.com
