Bobby Vee

At 73 years old, Bobby Vee has this physical status:

Robert Thomas Velline (born September 30, 1943 – October 24, 2016), also known as Bobby Vee, was an American singer, songwriter, and actor who appeared in films as Bobby Vee.

He had three hundred Hot 100 chart hits, ten of which reached the Top 20, according to Billboard's website.

In his career, he had six gold singles.

Life

Vee was born in Fargo, North Dakota, to Sydney Ronald Velline (a singer, pianist, and fiddle player) and Saima Cecelia Tapanila, along with a family of Norwegian and Finnish descent.

Vee and Karen Bergen married on December 28, 1963. Vee's family migrated from Los Angeles to near St. Louis in the early 1980s. Cloud, Minnesota, where he and Karen created annual fund-raising concerts to ensure music and arts services for local children. They had four children, including son Jeffrey, Thomas, and Robert, who worked with Vee in his later years, and daughter Jennifer. On August 3, 2015, Karen died of kidney disease.

Rockhouse Productions, owned and operated by Bobby and his brothers, was located in a historic bank building in St. Joseph, Minnesota, which is still in operation. The Vees helped plan and perform for a number of years in the annual "Joetown Rocks" festival, which draws thousands of spectators and area residents.

When diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2011, Vee continued to perform live until 2011. In 2011, friends and relatives contributed to his final new recordings, which were eventually released as The Adobe Sessions on February 3, 2014. Vee revealed publicly on April 29, 2012, that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and consequently, he would have withdrawn from the music business. He had been in memory care (long-term care to satisfy the needs of people with Alzheimer's disease, dementia, or other types of memory impairment) for 13 months in a long-term care facility in Rogers, Minnesota, just outside of Minneapolis, and later received hospice care in the weeks leading up to his death. Vee died of complications of the disease at the age of 73 on October 24, 2016.

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Career

Vee's career began in the midst of tragedy. On February 3, 1959, "The Day the Music Died", three of the four headline acts in the lineup of the traveling Winter Dance Party—Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper—were killed in the crash of a V-tailed 1947 Beechcraft Bonanza airplane, along with the 21-year-old pilot, Roger Peterson. (Dion DiMucci, the fourth headliner, had opted not to travel on the plane.) It crashed near Clear Lake, Iowa, en route to the next show on the tour itinerary, in Moorhead, Minnesota. Vee, then 15 years old, and a hastily assembled band of Fargo schoolboys (including his older brother Bill) calling themselves the Shadows, volunteered for and were given the unenviable job of filling in for Holly and his band at the Moorhead engagement. Their performance there was a success, and started Vee's career as a popular singer.

In 1963, Vee released a tribute album on Liberty Records called I Remember Buddy Holly. In the liner notes, he recalled Holly's influence on him and the events surrounding Holly's death, describing how he had looked forward to attending the concert, how the local radio station put out a call for local talent to fill after the disaster, and how Vee's recently organized group, modeled on Holly's style, had to make up a name (the Shadows) on the spot.

Vee became a star, and he performed regularly at Winter Dance Party memorial concerts in Clear Lake. His three sons, all musicians, performed with him there.

His first single, "Suzie Baby", was written by Vee with a nod to Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue" and was recorded in 1959 for the Minneapolis-based Soma label. The record was a hit in Minnesota and drew enough national attention to be purchased by Liberty Records, which signed Vee later that year.[6]

Vee's follow-up single, a cover of Adam Faith's UK number-one "What Do You Want?", charted in the lower reaches of the Billboard pop chart in early 1960. His fourth release, a revival of the Clovers' doo-wop ballad "Devil or Angel" (U.S. number six), brought him into the big time with U.S. buyers. His next single, "Rubber Ball" (1961, U.S. number six, Australia number one), made him an international star. He has cited as influences, producer Snuff Garrett and his personal manager, Arnold Mills. Vee's recording of "Take Good Care of My Baby" went to number one on Billboard magazine's U.S. pop chart in the summer of 1961 and number three in the UK Singles Chart.

Known primarily as a performer of so-called "Brill Building pop" material, Vee went on to record a string of international hits in the 1960s, including "More Than I Can Say" (1961, UK number 4), "Run to Him" (1961, US number 2; UK number 6), "The Night Has A Thousand Eyes" (1963, US number 3; UK number 3) and "Come Back When You Grow Up" (1967, US number 3). On the recording of "Come Back When You Grow Up", Bobby Vee and The Strangers are credited. However, that was merely the record label giving a name to the studio musicians working that day. Bobby's original band, The Shadows, backed him on the road; upon learning of the UK band The Shadows who backed Cliff Richard, the band changed its name to The Strangers. In 1961 Vee recorded a version of the song "Lollipop", originally by Ronald & Ruby, which also became a success. Vee had a total of ten hit singles in the UK, ending with "Bobby Tomorrow" (UK number 21) in 1963.

In 1963, American Bandstand signed Vee to headline Dick Clark's Caravan of Stars national U.S. tour, scheduled to perform its 15th show on the night of November 22, 1963, at the Memorial Auditorium in Dallas, Texas. The Friday evening event was cancelled after U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated that afternoon while touring Dallas in an open car caravan.

Vee was also a pioneer in the music video genre, appearing in several musical films and in the Scopitone series of early film-and-music jukebox recordings.

Early in Vee's career, a musician calling himself Elston Gunnn briefly toured with the band. This was Robert Allen Zimmerman, who later went on to fame as Bob Dylan. Dylan's autobiography mentions Vee and provides complimentary details about their friendship, both professional and personal.

In a concert at Midway Stadium in St. Paul, Minnesota, on July 10, 2013, Dylan said he had been on the stage with many stars, but that none of them were as meaningful as Vee. He said Vee was in the audience and then played Vee's hit "Suzie Baby" with emotion. Dylan said (in a video recording of the concert):

Dylan also recalled that Vee "had a metallic, edgy tone to his voice and it was as musical as a silver bell." Vee remembered that the musician he knew as Gunnn (Bob Dylan) "played pretty good in the key of C."

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