Jimmy Sweeney

Jimmy Sweeney (March 15, 1922 – October 6, 1992) was a singer, songwriter, and self-taught guitarist.

He was a member of the Nashville African-American music scene, and a veteran of World War II.

As a pop singer, he was known professionally as Jimmy Sweeney a.k.a. Jimmy Bell.

Jimmy was born, raised, and died in Nashville, Tennessee.

His recordings span country, rhythm and blues, soul, and doo wop.

He was an early influence on Elvis Presley.

Jimmy's main claim to fame is as an influence to the young Elvis and that he was the mystery singer on a demo disk played to Elvis by Sam Phillips.

An enduring myth from the fifties is that the young unknown Elvis was daunted by the performance on record of an (unknown) singer.

He married his wife Elsie in Jan 1941, and made ends meet as a carpenter.

He recorded under various names; Jimmy Sweeney, Jimmy Bell and Jimmy Destry.

He was the lead singer of "The Five Bars", who later changed their name to "The Varieteers".

In 1943 he was drafted as Private into the US Army, at Camp Forrest, Tennessee, and was eventually honourably discharged.

On the 8 Jul 1948 the Varieteers appeared as guests on Appointment With Music (an NBC radio show originating from WSM, Nashville).

The Varieteers, sang "All Dressed Up With A Broken Heart"... The host was Snooky Lanson, with Dorothy Dillard & Beasley Smith and his orchestra.

In Oct 53, the Varieteers were at Ciro's in Hollywood.

They performed in the intermissions between sets of Xavier Cugat and Abbe Lane.

He travelled throughout the U.S. and Canada promoting his recordings gathering a legion of fans.

However great success was to elude him.

For a time he worked in Western Canada for C.P.Rail

The story is that Elvis as an undiscovered 18-year-old was introduced to a demo record of "Without You" by Sam Phillips on 24 Jun 1954.

(Elvis had already visited Sun before that to record two sessions for personal use, and Marion Keisker had taken note of his potential).

Sam had a stack of demos that had been sent into him, one was a disk of an unknown ballad "Without You", by an unknown singer with guitar.

The song began: "Always at twilight I wish on a star, I ask the lord "to keep you wherever you are..." Sam had been impressed by it, but was unable to ascertain the name of the singer; nevertheless he toyed with releasing it as a single. Marion (Sam's business associate) intervened with the idea to get Elvis to sing it as a debut record. Despite a spirited attempt at recording it, Elvis felt he could not better the performance on the demo, and went on to work on "That's All Right", released in July 1954.

The Sweeney demo remained privately in Marion's hands, its existence became an urban myth.

Earlier to these events in January 1954, Elvis had, in the second of two (self-paid) private sessions, cut a second acetate at Sun Records of "I'll Never Stand In Your Way" and "It Wouldn't Be the Same Without You", the latter a Fred Rose, Jimmy Wakely song.

That song and the Sweeney demo have no similarity.

Later in 1960, Jimmy Sweeney made an original recording of "She Wears My Ring", a F. Bryant, B. Bryant adaptation of an old Mexican song, "La Golondrina".

It was a long-time favourite of his, he had also (again coincidentally) made a home recording of it in November 1960 at 565 Perugia Way in Los Angeles, officially released on "Follow That Dream Records" label, In a Private Moment album.

"She Wears My Ring" charted at No. 5 on CHUM, Toronto, in May 1961.

This particular record had been Jimmy's most successful, reaching number 5 on the Canadian Billboard, and, in July 1962, number 24 on the American chart.

Then, at the height of it all in 1962, aged 40, he opted out and returned home to Nashville; for a state government job.

Roy Orbison recorded it for Monument Records in 1964.

Named after his father, who was born in Nashville; he was of West Indian descent.

The second child of thirteen.

A gifted American football player as a boy, he was a self-taught guitarist.

He was born, raised, and based in Nashville, Tennessee all of his life.

Coincidentally, Elvis was to cover it in 1973 on the Good Times album on RCA Records, issued in 1974.

The singer was not identified, till heard by Christopher Kennedy in early 2017, his suspicions were confirmed by Jimmy's daughter Eugenia, among others.

The demo disc label identifies it as "Without You", "Audiodisc 3324", recorded at 78 rpm.

The writer of the song has never been identified.