Bobby Vee, who had 38 Top 40 hits in the late 1950s and early 1960s, died Monday morning from complications of Alzheimer’s disease. He was 73.
Vee had been in hospice care at a memory care facility in Rogers, Minnesota, where he spent the last 13 months of his life, according to the St. Cloud Times.
“It’s kind of a blessing,” Dr. Rick Rysavy, Vee’s primary care physician and close friend, told the paper. “There was no reason for him to suffer any longer.”
Born Robert Thomas Velline on April 30, 1943, the singer got his big break at the age of 15 as the result of a tragic incident that rocked the music world. He was recruited to fill in for Buddy Holly on Feb. 4, 1959, the night after the rock legend died in a plane crash with Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper, an event known as “the day the music died.”
Velline and his band, the Shadows, were hired because they knew Holly’s tunes, but the performance was a sad one, he said.
“It was like a wake,” was how Velline described that show to reporters on the 50th anniversary of Holly’s death.
Vee made enough of an impression that he was signed to a major label. After a few false starts, he became a perennial Top 10 artist when “Devil or Angel,” a cover of a song by The Clovers, hit No. 6 in 1960.
Other hits associated with Vee include “Rubber Ball” (1960), “Take Good Care Of My Baby” (1961), “Run To Him” (1961), and “The Night Has A Thousand Eyes” (1963).
Vee was labeled as a teen idol for most of his career, but his work did earn the respect of major artists like Bob Dylan, who briefly played piano for the singer before they both made it big.
Dylan reportedly suggested Velline go by the name “Vee” professionally, according to the Associated Press.
The future Nobel Prize winner said Vee “had a metallic, edgy tone to his voice and it was as musical as a silver bell” in his Chronicles: Volume One memoir.
Vee was married to Karen Bergen from 1963 to her death of kidney failure in 2015.
Funeral arrangements are pending, according to the family.
Before You Go
