Jimmy Dee

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Jimmy Dee is a Texan rockabilly-rock and roll musician and singer from San Antonio, TX. He hit 47 on the Billboard Top 50 early in 1958 with the song "Henrietta", a rockabilly-style, early rock 'n' roll song. He appeared on Dick Clark's American Bandstand TV program during December of 1957.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Jimmy Dee was born in May of 1944, and by 1956 had become a club attraction in lounges near San Antonio.

[edit] Career

It is known that he was a member of the backing group for the Verve recording artist Sharon Wynter, and recorded and also toured with her but did not sing on any of her recordings.

He worked as a session musician in Memphis and later in Nashville, Tennessee during the sixties. He is also credited on one of Del Shannon's tracks "Tell Her No", 1965, on drums and back-up vocals. It is thought that he may have toured with Shannon as his drummer.

During the years 1967 and 1968, he worked sessions in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, both at FAME Studios and Muscle Shoals Sound Studios.

A contractual dispute with Roulette Records caused his personal recording career to halt in early 1966. However, he reappeared during the late sixties and the mid-seventies and again in the eighties with several more records and produced one CD during the nineties.

Dee worked as a nightclub entertainer throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s. He would seem to disappear for several years and then suddenly return to performing; from late 1969 until 1975, he seemed to have abandoned music, and then suddenly reappeared playing clubs and released several new records from 1975 to 1978. He faded once again in 1979, and then returned in 1983 with a doo-wop group during the revival of doo-wop during the early 1980s.

From 1985 to 1987, he once again seemed to have quit the business, but reappeared again in 1987 and formed a new band and they were known to have been performing as late as 2007.

[edit] Awards

Jimmy Dee was inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame in 2007. Their website has both photos and samples of a few of Jimmy Dee's early recordings.

[edit] Personal life

In 1967, Dee married Sharon Wynter sister, Debra.

[edit] Discography

His discography is difficult to assemble as he recorded for eleven different labels during the years spanning 1957-1987.