Dala is a Canadian acoustic-folk two-piece musical group, made up by Sheila Carabine and Amanda Walther, both of Scarborough, Ontario.
Early history (2002-2005)
Sheila Carabine and Amanda Walther first met at Mary Ward Catholic Secondary School, at a high school band practice. Quickly afterwards, Carabine and Walther's friendship blossomed and they formed Dalain the summer of 2002. Their "innate understanding of music" and "vocal range" helped propel them towards signing a five-year artist development deal with Big Bold Sun Music on December 12, 2003, and on April 3, 2005, Dala released their first album, This Moment Is a Flash.
On August 8, 2005, Dala signed its first major record deal with Universal Music. Soon thereafter, on November 1, the band released its first major album, Angels & Thieves, containing five original songs and five covers. Immediately afterwards, Dala went out on tour to support the album, including a brief stint in early 2007 opening for Tom Cochrane. Returning to the studio after the tour, the band released their album Who Do You Think You Are on August 14, 2007, with the lead single "Anywhere Under the Moon" entering MuchMoreMusic rotation. Dala finished opening for Matthew Good on a cross-Canada tour in Cobalt, Ontario on November 3, 2007. In 2008, Dala joined Stuart McLean, the host of CBC Radio's Vinyl Cafe, for three separate Canadian tours. Other musical guests featured on these tours include Danny Michel and Russell deCarle. Over the course of their career, Dala has contributed cover songs to several compilations. The Angels & Thieves recordings of "Dream a Little Dream of Me", The Cure's "Lovesong", and Neil Young's "A Man Needs a Maid" were released on Just Like Heaven - a tribute to The Cure, Sing Me To Sleep - Indie Lullabies, and Cinnamon Girl - Women Artists Cover Neil Young respectively. Cinnamon Girl also included the duo's cover of Young's "Ohio", which was recorded for the 2007 compilation . The duo released their fourth album, Everyone Is Someone, on June 9, 2009. Lead single "Levi Blues" was nominated in the Mainstream Adult Contemporary category at the 2010 Canadian Radio Music Awards. The duo taped a performance for PBS in February 2010, which aired in June as Girls from the North Country. The performance also featured Canadian all-girl acts The Good Lovelies and Oh Susanna, and included covers of songs by Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, and Bob Dylan. That year the band won Vocal Group of the Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards. In the spring of 2012, Dala released their fifth studio album, Best Day, which earned three Canadian Folk Music Award nominations for English Songwriter of the Year, Vocal Group of the Year, and Producer of the Year. In between long breaks from recording, Amanda Walther and her brothers and cousins, as the WW Club, released a children's album More Better in June 2015. Sheila Carabine's solo album was planned for release in 2016.
The Juno Awards have been presented annually since 1970 to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music.
