<\/p>\n
In 1990, a raw and gritty one-hit wonder took over the airwaves. Behind the song\u2019s swagger was a surprising nod to Elvis Presley<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Alannah Myles<\/strong> spent two weeks at the top spot on the Billboard charts<\/a> with a song written in tribute to the King of Rock and Roll. “Black Velvet” captured Presley’s essence during his peak popularity, but its origins came during a more somber moment for its songwriter.<\/p>\n According to a post by the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame<\/a>, the powerful blues ballad was written by David Tyson<\/strong> and Christopher Ward<\/strong>. The latter was inspired to write the poignant song after visiting Memphis, Tennessee, for the 10th anniversary of the singer’s death in 1987.<\/p>\n In an interview with Billboard Canada<\/em><\/a>, Ward explained the song’s origins. “At the time, I was working at MuchMusic; I was sent to Memphis on a Greyhound bus with forty Elvis fanatics and a cameraman on assignment to cover the 10th\u00a0anniversary of Elvis\u2019 death.”<\/p>\n Parade Daily<\/strong>\ud83c\udfac <\/strong>SIGN UP for Parade’s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox<\/strong><\/a> \ud83c\udfac<\/strong><\/p>\n He continued, “As I habitually did, I made notes along the way, bits of which formed the foundation for the lyrics to ‘Black Velvet.’ The \u2018new religion\u2019 in the lyric is rock n\u2019 roll.”<\/p>\n The song was written specifically for Myles, and her demo scored her a contract with Atlantic Records. Less than one year later, recording artist Robin Lee<\/strong> recorded a country version of the tune.<\/p>\n In a 2021 interview<\/a>, Myles described “Black Velvet” as a “country blues song with a chorus. Ushering in a time when country music<\/a> won the hearts of the masses away from disco, punk and grunge music<\/a>.”<\/p>\n “If it were a crappy song, no one would remember it. I don\u2019t understand the popularity of the song as opposed to any other, but I do understand the breadth of emotion conjured from listening to it.”<\/p>\n Alannah Myles won a Grammy Award<\/a> in the category of Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female, for “Black Velvet.” She beat out Melissa Etheridge<\/strong>, Janet Jackson<\/a><\/strong>, Stevie Nicks<\/a><\/strong>, and Tina Turner<\/a><\/strong> for the coveted trophy.<\/p>\n Elvis Presley died in August 1977 at his Memphis, Tennessee home, Graceland. He was 42.<\/p>\n This story was originally published by Parade<\/a> on Mar 15, 2026, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 1990, a raw and gritty one-hit wonder took over the airwaves. Behind the song\u2019s swagger was a surprising nod to Elvis Presley. Alannah Myles spent two weeks at the top spot on the Billboard charts with a song written in tribute to the King of Rock and Roll. “Black Velvet” captured Presley’s essence during […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2329914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[451496,451495,25615,451497],"class_list":["post-2329913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-black-velvet","tag-christopher-ward","tag-elvis-presley","tag-peak-popularity"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1990-Raw-and-Gritty-One-Hit-Wonder-Has-a-Surprising-Elvis.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2329913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2329913"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2329913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2329915,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2329913\/revisions\/2329915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2329914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2329913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2329913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2329913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}