Bobby Vee, clean-cut pop star from 1960s, dead at 73
Vee, whose real name was Robert Velline, died from complications of Alzheimer's disease
NEW YORK: (AFP) - Bobby Vee, a clean-cut idol from the early days of rock n roll who gave a break to a young Bob Dylan, died on Monday, his son said. He was 73.
Vee, whose real name was Robert Velline, died from complications of Alzheimer s disease in a care facility in Minnesota, the state where he spent most of his life, his son Jeff Velline said.
Possessing the self-effacing humility of the Upper Midwest, Vee bought his first guitar with money from delivering newspapers and started recording with his band the Shadows as a teenager.
Adopting the innocent themes and sound of early rock an roll, Vee became a sensation with teenagers in the early 1960s with a string of hits, most notably "Take Good Care of My Baby" and "Suzie Baby."
"It was a young business and a young world and I never really thought too much about any of that. It was flat exciting and we were all over the place," he said in a 1999 interview.
Touring Minnesota in the band s early days, Vee needed a pianist and offered a spot to another local teenager, Bobby Zimmerman, even though he could then barely play the instrument.
Zimmerman -- soon to call himself Bob Dylan -- performed a few dates before enrolling at the University of Minnesota and then moving to New York, where he became a folk and rock legend.
Dylan, who is so taciturn that he has not commented on winning the Nobel Prize for Literature earlier this month, offered a highly unusual on-stage tribute in 2013 when Vee attended one of his concerts in Minnesota.
"I ve played with everybody from Mick Jagger to Madonna, but the most beautiful person I ve ever been on stage with is Bobby Vee," Dylan said, as quoted by Minnesota Public Radio s music blog The Current.
In another major connection to music history, the then little-known Shadows were hired as the fill-in band in 1959 after early rock greats Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper died in a plane crash en route to Minnesota -- the so-called "Day the Music Died."
Vee s recording career declined by the mid-1960s after the "British invasion" of more raucous acts led by The Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
But paradoxically Vee later enjoyed a career revival in the 1980s through the 2000s as a touring act in Britain where he maintained a strong fan following.
