Jimmy Velvet was an early American soft

Soft rock

Soft rock is a style of music which uses the techniques of rock music to compose a softer, more toned-down sound. Soft rock songs generally tend to focus on themes like love, everyday life and relationships. The genre tends to make heavy use of acoustic guitars, pianos, synthesizers and sometimes...

 rock and roll

Rock and roll

Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...

 vocalist

Singing

Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...

, during the 1960s

1960s

The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...

. His most popular singles were "It's Almost Tomorrow

It's Almost Tomorrow

"It's Almost Tomorrow" is a 1955 popular song with music by Gene Adkinson and lyrics by Wade Buff. The song was actually written in 1953, when Adkinson and Buff were in high school...

" and "We Belong Together

We Belong Together (Robert & Johnny song)

"We Belong Together" was a 1958 American rhythm and blues hit by Robert & Johnny. It was written by Johnny Mitchell, Robert Carr, and Sam Weiss. It reached #12 on the R&B charts and #32 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.-Cover versions:...

".

History

Jimmy originated in Jacksonville, Florida

Jacksonville, Florida

Jacksonville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Florida in terms of both population and land area, and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. It is the county seat of Duval County, with which the city government consolidated in 1968...

, where he became involved in music entertainment. It was there he met Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley

Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....

 and they became lifelong close friends. After Elvis' death Velvet operated an Elvis memorabilia museum in Memphis for about twenty years.

In the early 1960s, he worked as the manager for a singer from Texas named James Mullins, who used the name Jimmy Velvit

Jimmy Velvit

Jimmy Velvit is an American rock and roll singer, who began his career in the 1960s. His real name is James Mullins, originally from Coalgate, Oklahoma, later from Dallas, Texas. He is best known for recording a white rhythm and blues version, in 1961, of Robert & Johnny's 1958 hit "We Belong...

. The two soon split due to disagreements. Tennant began using Jimmy Velvet as the show name for his own recordings. Mullins continued recording separately using the Velvit spelling, and is still recording to this day. His recordings are also collectable, and similar to Tennant's. In fact, they both separately made recordings of "We Belong Together" during that period. Of the two singers, only Tennant's "It's Almost Tomorrow" and "We Belong Together" reached the Top 100 charts. A later album titled Reflections of...Jimmy Velvet's Greatest Hits did contain both those charted songs, and may still be found today.

Velvet was championed by TV host Dick Clark, who had him on his American Bandstand

American Bandstand

American Bandstand is an American music-performance show that aired in various versions from 1952 to 1989 and was hosted from 1956 until its final season by Dick Clark, who also served as producer...

show more than once. Clark helped him release a 1968 album A Touch of Velvet. The LP contained some of Jimmy's single releases including the title song and "It's Almost Tomorrow", but not "We Belong Together". Jimmy used various labels for his releases, including his own label named Velvet-tone.

Jimmy Velvet is still involved with the music field, and has published an autobiography

Autobiography

An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

titled Inside the Dream (2007), which includes a wealth of celebrity photographs from the early days of rock and roll.