Alannah Myles

Alannah Myles is a Canadian rock-and-pop singer-songwriter whose 1989 single "Black Velvet" became one of the American rock-pop crossover hits of the late 1980s. She was born Alannah Byles on December 25, 1957, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, into an Toronto entertainment family — her father William Douglas Byles was a Canadian children's-TV producer (iconic Sesame Street and Polka Dot Door). She dropped the surname Byles in favor of her mother's maiden name Myles for her professional career.

Her singing career began with Canadian club performances through the late 1970s and 1980s. Her 1989 self-titled debut album Alannah Myles (Atlantic Records) sold over 7 million copies worldwide and produced the single "Black Velvet" — which reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1990 and won the 1991 Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.

The 1989 single "Black Velvet" — written by Canadian songwriter Christopher Ward (Myles's then-boyfriend) and American producer David Tyson — was built around the Tennessee whiskey-and-Elvis lyrics and Myles's distinctive husky-vocal style. The 1989 song was inspired by the widespread Elvis Presley grief response in the American South following his 1977 death. The song's peak chart position established Myles as one of the Canadian rock-and-pop figures of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Her subsequent career produced two additional Canadian-charting albums — Rockinghorse (1992) and Alannah (1995) — but she failed to replicate her 1989 American breakthrough. She continued recording and performing Canadian shows into the 2010s and 2020s. Her 2018 album 85 BPM was her most-recent studio release. She has been continuously involved in Canadian-music advocacy and women's-rights work.

Her name Alannah is from the Irish-Gaelic a leanbh meaning "O child" — used as a Irish term of endearment. Alannah has been continuously climbing in American naming since the 2000s.