'Alannah Myles' (born December 25, 1958, Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, the daughter of Canadian broadcast pioneer Bill Byles. In 1988, she released her eponymous debut album. In 1990, "Black Velvet", a single from that album, was a worldwide smash hit and won a Grammy Award for 'Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female'.
When she was sixteen, she began performing in Southern Ontario. She eventually met Christopher Ward, the songwriter who helped her to form her own band, and performed cover versions of Aretha Franklin, T. Rex, AC/DC, Bob Seger, Anne Peebles, the Rolling Stones, and the Pretenders. Later, she joined David Tyson to produce her self-titled debut album, 'Alannah Myles'. She appeared together with Ward in a 1984 installment of the television series program 'The Kids Of Degrassi Street', in which she played the role of an aspiring singer and single mother.
In 1989, she released 'Alannah Myles'. It produced three Top 40 selections, "Love Is", "Lover Of Mine", and "Still Got This Thing", as well as the number-one hit "Black Velvet". For Myles, "Black Velvet" became a number one hit worldwide and was named the most played song on radio for 1989. "Black Velvet" won Myles a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Performance, and several Juno Awards.
The year 1992 brought the follow-up album, 'Rockinghorse', which included the hit singles "Song Instead Of A Kiss" by English poet Robert John Priest, "Our World, Our Times", and "Sonny, Say You Will". She received a Grammy nomination and three Juno Awards.
The year 1995 brought 'A-lan-nah', a lesser-known album which contained no Top 40 singles, though it included two tracks which made it into the Top 100: "Family Secret" and "Blow Wind, Blow".
In 1997 she left her eight-record contract with the Atlantic Records label at the behest of her manager, Miles Copeland, who signed her to his Ark 21 Records. Here she released 'Arrival', which had the Top 40 hit "Bad 4 You", written and recorded by Myles, Desmond Child and Eric Bazilian at Copeland's castle songwriting retreat at Grand Brassac, France. She declined to attend the 1997-1999 Lillith Fair, expressing some disgust at the quality of the performers.
In July 2008, Myles, in an interview with the CBC's Evan Solomon, discussed her upcoming album 'Black Velvet', which featured a new recording of her song of the same name in addition to ten new songs. 'Black Velvet' was released in April 2008 in Canada and Europe, with its release in the United States slated for the fall of 2009.
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