Jimmy Velvet

Jimmy Velvet (born Jimmy Tennant) was an early American soft rock and roll vocalist, during the 1960s. His most popular singles were "We Belong Together" and "It's Almost Tomorrow".

History

Jimmy was born in Jacksonville, Florida, where he became involved in music entertainment. It was there he met Elvis Presley 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. The two soon split due to disagreements. Tennant, who had recorded under his own name in the late 1950s, began using Jimmy Velvet as his show name by early 1963. Mullins continued recording separately using the Velvit spelling, and is still recording to this day. In fact, they both separately made recordings of "We Belong Together" during that period. When Tennant first recorded and released "We Belong Together in April, 1963, his intent was to be billed as Jimmy Velvet. But when the initial records were made, a copy of the earlier Mullins release on Cub was used as an informational reference, and his name was given as "Velvit". The label was also named as such, as the intent was to sell the record with the name association for the label. Only 1,000 copies were made, and most were destroyed. In July, more copies were made with the label name changed to the intended VELVET spelling, but Jimmy's name still showed as Velvit. Of the two singers, only Tennant's "We Belong Together" and "It's Almost Tomorrow" 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.