Bobby Vee (born April 30, 1943) is an American pop music singer.
Born Robert Thomas Velline in Fargo, North Dakota, United States, his 1961 performance of the song "Take Good Care Of My Baby" went to No.1 on the Billboard U.S. charts and on the U.K. Charts. Known primarily as a performer of Brill Building pop-factory singles, Vee nevertheless became a bona fide star, and went on to record a string of international chart hits in the 1960s, including "Devil or Angel", "Run to Him", "Rubber Ball" and "The Night Has A Thousand Eyes". Bobby Vee also appeared in several of the Scopitone series of early film-and-music recordings. Vee is still active and touring as a performer as of spring 2005. Vee's career began amid tragedy. On "The Day the Music Died" (3 February 1959) -- the day Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson were killed in the crash of aircraft N3974N near Clear Lake, Iowa -- fifteen-year-old Velline and a scratched-together band of Fargo, North Dakota schoolboys calling themselves Bobby Vee and the Shadows volunteered for and were given the unenviable job of filling in for Holly and his band The Crickets in the lineup of the traveling "Winter Dance Party" rock and roll show in Moorhead, Minnesota in which Holly was to have performed. Their engagement there was a success, setting in motion a chain of events that led to Vee's career as a popular singer. Bobby Vee regularly performs at the Winter Dance Party memorial concerts in Clear Lake to this day.
Bobby Vee is a recipient of the state of North Dakota's Roughrider Award. n the early 1960s, musician Robert Zimmerman was asked to leave Vee's touring band due to a perceived lack of talent. Zimmerman would go on to have a career as a folksinger under the name Bob Dylan.
