Pop singer

Born: April 30, 1943;

Died: October 24, 2016

BOBBY Vee, who has died of Alzheimer's disease aged 73, was an American pop singer whose break into the business came when he was asked to fill in after the 1959 plane crash that killed Buddy Holly. He went on to have a number of hits in the 1960s including Take Good Care of My Baby.

Born Robert Velline in Fargo, North Dakota, Vee was only 15 when he took to the stage in Moorhead, Minnesota, after the crash which also killed Ritchie Valens and JP "The Big Bopper" Richardson.

The call had gone out for local acts to replace Holly at his scheduled show at the Moorhead National Guard Armory and Vee and his two-week-old band volunteered, along with three or four others. The show’s emcee, Charlie Boone, turned to Vee and asked him the name of his band. Vee looked at the shadows of his bandmates on the floor and answered: The Shadows.

“I didn’t have any fear right then,” Vee recalled in 1999. “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.”

Vee called his debut a milestone in his life, and the start of a wonderful career.

Within months the young singer and The Shadows, which included his older brother Bill on lead guitar, recorded Vee’s Suzie Baby for Soma Records in Minneapolis. It was a hit, and Vee soon signed with Liberty Records.

He went on to record 38 Top 100 hits from 1959 to 1970, hitting the top of the charts in 1961 with Take Good Care of My Baby and reaching No 2 with the follow-up, Run to Him. Other Vee hits include Rubber Ball, The Night Has A Thousand Eyes, Devil or Angel, Come Back When You Grow Up, Please Don’t Ask About Barbara and Punish Her.

Besides his clear, ringing voice, Vee also was a skilled rhythm guitarist and occasional songwriter. He racked up six gold singles, but saw his hits diminish with the British invasion of The Beatles and other English groups in the mid-1960s.

Vee kept recording into the 2000s and maintained a steady touring schedule. But he began having trouble remembering lyrics during performances, and he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2011. He performed his last show that year.

In a 2013 interview, Vee said he knew his abilities were diminishing and he did not want to put his family through a public decline. “It’s not getting any better, I can tell you that,” Vee said. “But I’m doing the best I can.”

Vee still released a new album, The Adobe Sessions, a loose jam session recorded with family members. It was released on the 55th anniversary of the Holly plane crash.

The album also included Vee’s cover of Bob Dylan’s The Man in Me, a nod to the folk-rock legend who got his start in Vee’s band in Fargo.

Dylan grew up in Hibbing, a town on northern Minnesota’s Iron Range, and briefly played with Vee’s band. Although their time playing together was short, Dylan had a lasting effect on Vee’s career: it was Dylan, himself going by the name Elston Gunn when he played piano at a couple of The Shadows’ gigs, who suggested Vee change his last name from Velline to Vee.

In his Chronicles: Volume One memoir, Dylan recalled Vee had a metallic, edgy tone to his voice and said it was as musical as a silver bell. When Dylan performed in St Paul in 2013, he saluted Vee in the audience and performed Suzie Baby.

Vee and his wife, Karen, were married for more than 50 years. She died of kidney failure in 2015 at age 71. Vee is survived by their four sons.