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Bobby Vee Dead: 1960s Pop Singer Known for ‘Take Good Care of My Baby’ Dies at Age 73

Bobby Vee, a 1960s pop singer known for hits such as “Rubber Ball” and “Take Good Care of My Baby,” died of advanced Alzheimer’s disease on Monday, October 24.

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Bobby Vee
Bobby Vee circa 1960.

“It’s kind of a blessing,” Dr. Rick Rysavy, Vee’s primary care physician and close friend, told Minnesota’s St. Cloud Times. “There was no reason for him to suffer any longer.”

Vee’s son Jeff Velline told the BBC that his famous father — who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2011 — died peacefully surrounded by friends and family on Monday morning. According to Velline, Vee’s death was “the end of a long hard road.”

Bobby Vee
Bobby Vee plays the guitar at his family’s Rockhouse Productions in St. Joseph, MN, on Dec. 18, 2013.

Vee (born Robert Thomas Velline) burst onto the music scene at the age of 15, when he was asked to fill in for Buddy Holly for a gig on February 4, 1959 — the night after Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson died in an Iowa plane crash. To many, the tragic incident is known as “the day the music died.” It is also the inspiration behind Don McLean’s 1971 track “American Pie.”

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Vee and his two-week old band — who went by the Shadows — were asked to play because they knew Holly’s songs well.

“I didn’t have any fear right then,” Vee — who played his last show in 2011 — said during a 1999 interview with the Associated Press about that performance. “The fear didn’t hit me until the spotlight came on, and then I was just shattered by it. I didn’t think that I’d be able to sing. If I opened my mouth, I wasn’t sure anything would come out.”

He went on to release 25 studio albums and had numerous songs on the Billboard Hot 100. Vee was also known for the instrumental part he played in fellow musician Bob Dylan’s career. Dylan (under the name Elston Gunn) briefly played the piano with Vee’s band in the early ’60s until both musicians made it big. The “Forever Young” crooner, now 75, was actually the one who suggested Velline change his last name to Vee.

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Vee — who released his 25th studio album, The Adobe Sessions, in February 2014 — and wife Karen were married for more than 50 years before she died of kidney failure at age 71 in 2015. Together, they shared four children.

He is survived by his kids, Jennifer, Robert, Thomas and Jeff Velline. According to the family, funeral arrangements have yet to be planned.

 

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