Jimmy Clanton (born September 2, 1940, Baton Rouge, Louisiana) is an American singer who became known as the "swamp pop R&B teenage idol". His band recorded a hit song "Just A Dream" which Clanton had written in 1958 for the Ace Records label. It reached number four on the Billboard chart and sold a million copies. Clanton performed on Dick Clark's American Bandstand and toured with popular artists like Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis and The Platters.

Clanton formed his first band called the Rockets in 1956 while attending Baton Rouge High School.

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 top 40 seven times (all released on Ace); his Top 10 records were: the doo-wop 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 late 1959) and "Venus in Blue Jeans" (written by Howard Greenfield and Jack Keller). 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" and "Because I Do." His next major hit, "Venus in Blue Jeans," peaked at number seven in mid-1962.