Alannah Myles

ARTICLE CONTENTS:  |  Bibliography  |  Links to Other Sites

Myles, Alannah
Alannah Myles (b Byles). Singer, songwriter, b Toronto 25 Dec 1958. Alannah Myles worked as a solo and backup singer and as a model before teaming up in the mid-1980s with the songwriter Christopher Ward and the songwriter-producer Dave Tyson to record her first album, Alannah Myles. Issued in 1989 by (US) Atlantic (78-19561), it included hard rock and ballads and sold more than 1 million copies in each of the Canadian and US markets. The song 'Black Velvet,' a tribute to Elvis Presley, reached no. 1 on Billboard magazine's Top 100 in March 1990. Other titles from the album, 'Love Is,' 'Still Got This Thing,' and her own 'Lover of Mine,' (written for her cat) were major hits in Canada. Myles received Juno awards in 1990 as most promising singer and for single ('Black Velvet') and album of the year, and a (US) Grammy in 1991 as best female rock performer, again for 'Black Velvet.' Myles, who cut an aggressive, supremely confident, black-leather clad figure in Canadian pop, began touring in 1989. Her itinerary in 1990 included US appearances opening for Robert Plant, Tina Turner and Simple Minds. Subsequent album releases, Rockinghorse (Atlantic), 1992, and Alannah (Atlantic), 1995, did not fare so well with critics or the audience. She released two more albums with Ark 21 Records (the label owned by her manager, Miles Copeland), Arival, 1997, and Alannah Myles: The Very Best Of, 1998. "Black Velvet" and "Lover of Mine" were added to SOCAN's list of Canadian classics in 2004. In 2005, she resumed touring throughout Canada and recorded a new album, 85bpm, on her own label, AvAtrecord.

Author Revised: Barry Grills


Bibliography

Mintz, Roman. 'Myles from nowhere,' Music Express, 144, Feb 1990

Jennings, Nicholas. 'Siren of hard rock,' Maclean's, 2 Apr 1990

Druckman, Howard. 'Alannah Myles: a mind of her own,' Network, Apr-May 1990


Links to Other Sites
JUNO Awards
The website for the JUNO Awards and the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. Scroll down the page to check out the latest award winners and music clips. Sample the latest JUNO Awards CD. From the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

0
0
Absolutely free, with over 40,000 articles in French and English, The Canadian Encyclopedia is the ultimate online resource for all things Canadian, from history, sports, arts, science, technology, and much, much more. Get started at www.TheCanadianEncyclopedia.com
Feature Articles
The Formation of the RCMP

The Dominion government's advertisement asked for volunteers "able to read and write either the English or French language" with "good antecedents" who were good horsemen...

INSIDE TCE

Gallery
Browse the rich visual resources of The Canadian Encyclopedia through thematic galleries of Canadian Art, History, Nature, People, and Science and Technology.
Interactive Resources
Illustrations, lively text, animations, sounds and games help make learning about Canadian history, art, geography, architecture and other topics entertaining as well as informative.
Canucklehead
The ultimate test of your knowledge of Canada, trivial and otherwise. You can choose from more than 60 dynamic quizzes with visual or text clues. Your scores depend on the speed with which you answer and the number of clues you need. Results are sent to you by email and high scores are posted on the site.
Timeline
This unique resource includes more than 6000 events from Canadian and world history. It can be searched by era, subject, keyword or date. To find out what happened on your birthday, select the month and day of your birth.
100 Greatest Events
This selection of the 100 "greatest" events in Canadian history was made by editor in chief James H. Marsh to draw attention to events that have left an indelible memory in the minds of later generations.