Alannah Myles/Melissa Etheridge - what's the deal?

I have Black Velvet by Alannah Myles - and I have Black Velvet by Melissa Etheridge - same exact freakin' song! What's the deal? Is this one person with two names, or what?

 

Alannah Myles is a Canadian, and a completely different person, who had big hit with BLACK VELVET.

She is semi-notorious in Canada for not being able to follow through on it tho

 

Sounds like you downloaded two copies of the same recording with one of them being misidentified.

For the record, "Black Velvet" was Alannah Myles' hit. As far as I know, Melissa Etheridge has never recorded the song.

Apparently, the similarity of their voices has led some people, accidentally or intentionally, to attach Melissa's name to it. The same way lots of MP3's of Meredith Brooks' "Bitch" say they're by Alanis Morrisette, or every two bit parody comedy song on MP3 says it's by "Weird Al" Yankovic.

 

Country-pop singer Robin Lee did do a cover of Black Velvet and it became a country hit back in 1990 as well.

 

It's confusing, because a search for "Melissa Etheridge Black Velvet" brings up all KINDS of matches. Maybe it was a song written by Etheridge and recorded by Myles?

 

Not a bad guess, but nope. Black Velvet was written by David Tyson and Christopher Ward.

 

She's referred to as "Alotta Miles" up here for her resistance to fess up about her age. She's been around the block. Huge success, huge burnout.

To my knowledge Melissa never did it. Makes me nuts when people do that with MP3's. I had to argue with a guy that was convinced he had Day Tripper performed by The Beatles WITH Jimi Hendrix!

 

"John Lennon Black Velvet" returns even more matches. He had nothing to do with the song, though, and neither did Melissa Etheridge.

 

It's even worse when DJ's don't know what they're playing, and announce it! "Hot Rod Hearts" by Bruce Springsteen? BZZZ! WRONG!

 

She has re-recorded Black Velvet and released it on her new album, also entitled Black Velvet. It's actually a fairly good version. It plays on her MySpace page here:

http://www.myspace.com/alannahmyles