Bio

Dana Wylie is a singer of rare gift and a crafter of deeply felt and sharply observed songs. Praised for being as dexterous with words as she is with her guitar, piano and remarkably powerful voice, she write with equal parts craft and passion. Penguin Eggs magazine once called her the only artist about whom they have “felt comfortable comparing favourably to Joni Mitchell in the scope of her talent EVER.” 

Cutting short a promising career in the Canadian theatre scene at 23, Dana decided musicians were her tribe. She moved to the unlikely locale of Taiwan, where she cut her musical teeth playing with jug bands, blues bands, bluegrass bands and cover bands, singing jazz n hotel lounges, and doing some of the most bizarre corporate gigs you could possibly imagine. Moving to the UK in 2005, she formed her own band and toured steadfastly for five years, releasing three critically-praised albums in the process. She then landed back in Canada in 2010 to pursue graduate studies in musicology. She also returned to her theatrical roots in 2015, producing, writing, performing the critically-acclaimed and Sterling Award-nominated Fringe hit The Second Line: Two Ladies and the Old School Blues. 

Dana’s 2017 record The Earth That You’re Made Of earned her a Canadian Folk Music Award nomination for Contemporary Singer of the Year, and was described by journalist and programmer Peter North as “one of the finest contemporary roots recordings to have ever been produced in Alberta, period.” Busier than ever the last few years, she debuted her critically acclaimed theatrical song-cycle Makings of a Voice in 2021, released her sixth solo album How Much Muscle in early 2023, will release an album or original country duets with Sammy Volkov later this year, and will record an album with new soul/rock/roots group Secondhand Dreamcar this summer.