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 1950's, 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. His recordings are also collectable, and similar to Tennant's. 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.
Velvet was championed by TV host Dick Clark, who had him on his American Bandstand show more than once. Clark helped him release a 1967 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 titled Inside the Dream (2007), which includes a wealth of celebrity photographs from the early days of rock and roll.
Jimmy today (June 2012) can be seen occasionally at the Auto Collections (Museum) located in the Imperial Palace Casino, Las Vegas, signing autographs and selling his autobiography and his Greatest Hits CD, which includes his own "Did You Know Elvis?".
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