Career
Clanton formed his first band called the Rockets in 1956 while attending Baton Rouge High School. [5]
One of the few white singers to come out of the New Orleans R&B/rock & roll sound, he rode the crest of the popular teen-music wave in the 1950s and 1960s. His records charted in the U.S. Top 40 seven times (all released on Ace); his Top 10 records were: the song "Just a Dream," (Pop #4, R&B #1 in August 1958, credited to 'Jimmy Clanton and His Rockets'), "Go, Jimmy, Go" (peaked at number five in early 1960) and "Venus in Blue Jeans" (peaked at number seven on October 6, 1962, [6] written by Howard Greenfield and Jack Keller). [7] In early 1961, Clanton was drafted and spent the next two years in the U.S. Army, continuing to have chart successes with "Don't Look at Me", "Because I Do", and the aforementioned "Venus in Blue Jeans". His only hit in the UK Singles Chart was "Another Sleepless Night", a Greenfield/Neil Sedaka composition that spent one week at number 50 in July 1960. [8]
Clanton starred in a rock and roll movie produced by DJ Alan Freed called Go, Johnny, Go! [4] and later starred in Teenage Millionaire, with music arranged and produced by Dr. John and arranger/trumpeter Charlie Miller. [9] During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Clanton was managed by Cosimo Matassa, the New Orleans recording studio owner and engineer. In May 1960, Ace Records announced in Billboard that Philadelphia had proclaimed the week of May 16 to be "Jimmy Clanton Week." [10]
In 1963, American Bandstand signed Clanton to Dick Clark's Caravan of Stars national U.S. tour which was scheduled to perform its 15th show on the night of November 22, 1963, at the Memorial Auditorium in Dallas, Texas, until suddenly the Friday-evening event had to be canceled moments after U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated that afternoon while touring Dallas in an open-car caravan. [11] [12]
Clanton became a disc jockey at WHEX in Columbia, Pennsylvania, between 1972 and 1976 and performed in an oldies revue also in the 1970s, The Masters of Rock 'n' Roll, with Troy Shondell, Ray Peterson, and Ronnie Dove. He had a religious conversion in August 1980. [13] Clanton appeared at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in 1995 and performed with Frankie Ford. [14]
In 2022, Clanton published a book co-authored with Sandy Weeks titled Just A Dream From Singer to Servant of God! The Story of Jimmy Clanton. It tells his story of life as a star and also about the unexpected journey of faith that began in 1980. [15]
Honors and Awards
Clanton was inducted into the Museum of the Gulf Coast Hall of Fame, which also has inducted such performers as Tex Ritter, Janis Joplin, ZZ Top and B. J. Thomas. [16]
On April 14, 2007, at a "Legends of Louisiana Celebration & Inductions" concert in Mandeville, Louisiana, Jimmy Clanton was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. [17]
Clanton's records "Just a Dream," "A Letter to an Angel," "Ship on a Stormy Sea," and "Venus in Blue Jeans" each sold over one million copies, and were awarded gold discs. [4]
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