Black is Back

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Pop-country classic Black Velvet' has been completely re-imagined on a brand new, contemporary album, but that's just the tip of the ice burg. Alannah Miles. Is. Back.I truly did not expect this when I sent an email inquiry late last week, but Alannah and her fabulous management team not only got back to my email promptly, but Alannah answered a laundry list of questions over the weekend -- from Brazil no less! Now that's working it, girlfriend.I want to get right to it, with as much as possible in Alannah's own words. My questions/comments are in bold. We're excited you're back! I think many of our readers will naturally wonder, why the long break? Thank you. It feels like right timing for me to return with a new record. It has taken me 8 years to free myself from contractual obligations that were preventing my forward movement and I was simply very unhappy at the way in which the music industry that I had come to know was treating me for all my hard work and dedication. There seemed to be no better solution than to voluntary take myself out of the circus filled events I'd attracted and to start all over again with the right liaise of people to help me rebuild my career. I did not anticipate this would take as long as it did, but it facilitated years of weekly songwriting sessions that will see me recording the next 3 albums furtively on the heels of each release to compensate for my elongated public absence. Black Velvet' is one of your most beloved songs, what gave you the idea to revisit that classic for the new album? I had been prevented contractually from re-cutting any of my songs recorded by Atlantic for 12 years after the date of the first recordings ... re-cutting it seemed like my universal and legal right to reclaim. It's a great song and I intend to rerecord it several more times before I hang up the microphone.Can you speak to what it's like getting the chance to take an old song and make it new? Was it hard? Scary? Or just plain fun? It was like rewriting a Shakespeare play might have been, or attempting to repaint a Picasso. An enormous task for the selected Canadian and French producers. It took 3 complete re-recordings and several thousands of my budget dollars but we finally succeeded in recreating the track in a modern way that would embellish, not retract from its original. We've received mixed reactions but for the most part they've all been positive and overall people are open to a new version of the classic hit.What serves as your inspiration? Love, lack or abundance of it. Pain, longing, another's beautifully inspired piece of music. Riveting poetry. A conversation with my fish, an imaginary fight with someone demonizing me (or themselves). Anger, or anger incited by someone's cheek. The pathos of human sadness. Anything that happens to cross my mind in conversation or everything that gets in my way. Music needs to have a lyric that makes conversational sense to me. It must be truthfully felt or spoken. I usually have the lyrics completed in the form of poetry so the melody falls out when a groove is played but not always. Sometimes they just arrive out of nowhere as I sing over a beautifully inspired musical piece played on acoustic guitar by myself or my collaborator.What's in your CD player right now? My new CD of course. It has been completed for a couple of years but the timing elements were not right for it to be released without the correct tools in place. The right label for one. I have found a happy home with Toronto's indie label Linus Entertainment / True North Records. A good, hard working team of people directed by their ambitious and sensitive to artist development CEO, Geoff Kulawick.For a very long time it was just too frustrating to listen to my painstaking efforts on record and having to avoid feeling the accompanying frustration of the anti-climatic effect it can have on you when you must wait for what seems like forever for the wheels to turn and your time to come. I can happily say that I now listen to it irregularly with great pride and delight in the sounds of the music and songs I have written, sculpted and sung. Much like a proud mother who watches her children performing in their school play or dad watching his son up to bat on the baseball diamond with bases loaded. Finally, I'm in the drivers seat and the journey begins.Do you have a favorite song off the new album? I have several and they keep changing. This to me is a sign of a well made album. If it can hook you to fall in love with yet another element you may not have heard before but are able to hear in a new light after some new experience or emotion then you did your job and it's time to mix it, release it and move on to colour some other artistic palette. I'd have to say that my focus is on Trouble right now. We are hoping to do a wonderful jug band video for it and though my focus is directed at promoting this album I've made, I intend to make my next record a more roots styled, sexy, R&B rock effort with of course some beloved pop ballads tossed in. I'm a sucker for the sweet stuff. Especially if it makes me and those who hear it cry. I love music that tugs at your heart and makes you feel all those long lost emotions you'd long since forgotten. I also love to rock! And rock she does! (Leave It Alone and Prime Of My Life are personal faves, BTW )We all have days where we're just overwhelmed and want to take a nap. How do you motivate yourself to keep going, to stay on track?I was born with the energy of ten men. All my life family members were apologizing to surprised onlookers for the heightened level of energy which was often misconstrued as amphetamine related. This is simply a joke! I do not drink, smoke, ingest drugs or pop pills. A Tylenol tablet requires hours of negotiation to decide whether I want painkiller in my system. I'm a purist, I'm also a minimalist. I take what I need to live. I don't waste time on depressing subjects, people or those that usurp my energy with their negative agendas. I have learned the art of discipline. A highly necessary commodity when success hits you out of the blue and you're called back to the land of places, people and their unruly demands.I like the part about, well, all of that answer. Strong woman! Love. You. Wow, what else can I say? Thanks to Alannah for the email -- looking forward to all that new music!LISTEN TO 'BLACK VELVET'--Wes