A frequent presence in the Memphis roots-punk community, Lorette Velvette was a vocalist and guitarist whose confident, natural singing style and knack for rough-hewn but atmospheric performances earned her a cult following among fans of offbeat roots music. In her early years, Velvette worked with the likes of Tav Falco and Alex Chilton, and she would later perform with the groups the Hellcats, Alluring Strange, and the Kropotkins in addition to recording as a solo artist, delivering soulful, hard-edged music on albums like 1993's White Birds and 1995's Dream Hotel.

Lorette Velvette was born Lori Godwin in Savannah, Tennessee. As a teenager, Godwin had played the flute, but her musical world view changed when she struck up a friendship with Memphis roots-punk pioneer Tav Falco. Godwin and Falco became an item, and as she checked out his record collection she became interested in raw blues and rockabilly, and traded her flute for an electric guitar. Godwin became a member of Falco's group Panther Burns, and adopted the stage name Lorette Velvette which was coined by Falco. She appeared on the 1987 Panther Burns album The World We Knew, and that same year contributed backing vocals to the Alex Chilton LP High Priest. Velvette joined an all-female Memphis punk band the Hellcats, who dropped their debut EP, Cherry Mansions, in 1988, followed by a full-length album, Hoodoo Train, in 1990. After the Hellcats broke up, Velvette and her bandmate Misty White formed a new band, the garage rock-influenced Alluring Strange, whose lone album, Will You Marry Me?, came out in 1994. She also contributed backing vocals on Sonic Youth's 1995 LP Washing Machine.

By this time, Velvette had launched a solo career, issuing her first album, White Birds, in 1993. Produced by Alex Chilton, the album blended the rough and smooth sides of Velvette's music, and was issued by the German label Veracity Records. A second LP, Dream Hotel, arrived in 1995, with Blare Birra at the controls, and Doug Easley, Davis McCain, and Dave Soldier as part of her backing band on 1997's Lost Part of Me. (A 1996 split single with Mick Collins of the Dirtbombs filled the gap between the second and third LPs.) Not long after the release of the third album, Veracity Records went out of business, and for a while, Velvette relocated to New York City, where she sang in Soldier's pro-labor urban punk-folk band the Kropotkins, who put out their first album in 1996; Moe Tucker of the Velvet Underground briefly played drums with the group. The 2000 collection Rude Angel brought together non-LP single sides and rare early recordings from her solo career; it also marked the beginning of a long pause in Velvette's recording career, though she would continue to perform live (especially after she returned to Memphis) and toured in Europe with the Hellcats. In 2019, the French Mono-Tone label released Don't Crowd Your Mind, a vinyl-only sampler of Velvette's solo catalog. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi