Boomer music fans from the early 1960s were bowing their heads Monday upon news that pop idol Bobby Vee had died at 73 after a battle with Alzheimer’s disease.
People magazine summarized Vee’s career: “Vee, a native of Fargo, North Dakota, launched his career in the late ’50s, and got his big break thanks to one of rock and roll’s most notorious accidents. His first group, The Shadows, was tapped as a replacement in Fargo a plane crash laid the original acts — Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper — low. Within months, they’d released a single, ‘Suzie Baby.’ (An early incarnation of the Shadows featured a pre-fame Bob Dylan playing keyboards.)
“’Suzie Baby” was Vee’s first big hit, though its follow up, ‘What Do You Want?’ didn’t land as well. But Vee’s good looks and connections with the Brill Building songwriting team all but guaranteed him fame. His third single, “Devil or Angel,” cracked the Top 10 in the middle of 1960.”
Eve’s Southland connections including his having a contract with Liberty Records in Los Angeles.