httpss://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awNqLO6auQA
Photo Bobby Vee, who became a teenage idol in the early 1960s with infectious hits like “Take Good Care of My Baby” and “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes,” died on Monday in Rogers, Minn. He was 73.The cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease, his son Jeff Velline said.
Mr. Vee was one of a crop of dreamboat singers promoted by the music industry in the late 1950s and early ’60s, joining Ricky Nelson, Frankie Avalon, Bobby Rydell and others on the charts.
Sweetly sincere, an accomplished guitarist and songwriter as well as a singer, Mr. Vee wangled his way into his older brother’s band as the lead vocalist because he was the only one who remembered the lyrics to their songs.
Mr. Vee’s wife, the former Karen Bergan, died in 2015.
Mr. Vee and his three sons performed together in a band, the Vees.”It was rural America,” Mr. Vee said of Fargo in the 1950s.
Mr. Vee played saxophone in his high school band, but with savings from his newspaper route he bought a $30 Harmony guitar after his brother Bill taught him a few chords.
Mr. Vee abbreviated his surname at the suggestion of Mr. Dylan, who was taken by Mr. Vee’s graciousness and later described him as “The most beautiful person I’ve ever been on the stage with.”
Mr. Vee’s voice, he said, was “As musical as a silver bell.”