Alannah Myles (née Byles; born December 25, 1958)[1][2] is a Canadian singer-songwriter who has won both a Grammy and a Juno Award for the song "Black Velvet".

At the age of 18, she began performing solo gigs in southern Ontario, eventually meeting Christopher Ward, a recording artist and songwriter with Warner Music Group.

She appeared in a 1984 episode of the television series The Kids of Degrassi Street, in which she played the role of an aspiring singer and single mother.

[6] In late 1987, Warner Music Canada's director of artists and repertoire (A&R), Bob Roper, sent Myles's three-song video package to all of Warner Music Group's US affiliates, which garnered a contract for seven or eight years from Atlantic Records (WMG), given by head of A&R Tunc Erim and Atlantic label founder Ahmet Ertegun.

Myles left her acting career and co-wrote and recorded the remainder of her first album with Christopher Ward and producer David Tyson.

[4] "Song Instead Of a Kiss", written and composed by Myles, Nancy Simmonds, and Canadian poet Robert Priest,[11] was a 60-piece orchestrated ballad that reached number one on several radio stations around the globe but was met with little response in America, whose audiences were accustomed to "that slow southern style" of "Black Velvet".

On Ark 21, she released A Rival,[4] which contained 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.

In 2004, she released a cover of "I Can't Stand the Rain", with Jeff Healey on guitar, for a Tina Turner tribute album What's Love?

Their selection, "We Got It All", scored very few points and finished seventh out of eight songs, yet it managed to dominate the leading newspaper and media headlines in Sweden.

[15] Myles won the 15th annual USA Songwriting Competition for both Best Rock/Alternative Song as well as grand prize finalist for a selection, written and composed jointly with Nancy Simmonds for her Black Velvet CD, titled "Give Me Love".

A newly recorded song written by Anne Peebles, produced by Michael Borkosky, "Can't Stand the Rain" was added to 85bpm, featuring a solo played by Canadian guitarist Jeff Healey, re-released on Myles' independently owned label, Fascinate inc., digitally distributed by Tunecore.com, with audio CDs and a 25th anniversary live concert DVD, both distributed by Amazon.com in the US.