February 3,1959 will long be remembered as the day the music died, but for the “Baby Face” singer Bobby Vee, it was the day his career was given life…
Pop singer Bobby Vee. (Photo by Michael Levin/Corbis via Getty Images)
Bobby Vee, who’s known for chart-topping hits like “Take Good Care of My Baby” and “Suzie Baby,” got his lucky break on the same day the music world was crushed by tragedy.
Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, the Big Bopper, Dion and other pop stars, were travelling on a tour bus, performing 24 back-to-back shows through the rough and snowy terrain of the Midwest in the Winter Party Tour, which is known as rock & roll’s “Tour from Hell.”
Tired of being on the unheated bus–some artists had gotten frostbite and the flu–Holly chartered a single-engine aircraft to quickly carry him, Valens, and the Big Bopper from Clear Lake, IA to the next stop, in Moorhead, MN, which is a six-minute drive from Fargo, ND, the home of the then 15-year-old Bobby Vee.
It was just before 1 a.m. when the plane crashed killing the pilot and all three stars, a dark day observed by singer-songwriter Don McLean in his 1972 pop song “American Pie.”
Despite the tragic loss of music’s greatest stars, which was felt across the world, the tour went on, with new headliners Jimmy Clanton, Fabian & Frankie Avalon. Frankie Sardo, Dion & The Belmonts, and The (new) Crickets–who took the bus to Moorhead–continued until the end of the tour.
That day, Vee’s name would also appear on the playbill as a headliner.
Vee, born Robert Thomas Velline, was a fresh-faced, clean-cut boy whose love for music was inherited from his musical family. Learning how to play the guitar from his big brother Bill, Vee used his earnings from his paper route to purchase his first guitar, and practiced in a band with Bill and two high school friends, Dick Dunkirk and Bob Korum...CONTINUE READING