MPR’s Leif Enger interviews American singer, songwriter, and musician Bobby Vee, who shares memories of his 40-year music career…and that of a music tragedy tied to his own history.
It is also the 40-year-anniversary of the plane crash that took the lives of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper. The three last performed at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa; the plane went down in a snowstorm en route to Moorhead, where the next show was scheduled. Vee, who as a teenager helped fill in at the Moorhead concert, also found his career that night.
Segment includes music clips of Vee.
Awarded:
1999 Minnesota AP Award, first place in Writing - Radio Division, Class Three category
Transcripts
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LEIF ENGER: It's such a fantasy for so many, it's hard to believe it can happen. But it did. Robert Velline was 15 when he stepped into the lights that night in Moorhead, a schoolboy who'd gone home for lunch and heard about the plane crash on the radio.
ROBERT VELLINE: You'd think the show would have been canceled. But, you know, there was also the tradition of the show must go on. And the radio station said, we're going on with the show, and we're looking for some local talent to help fill in the evening. And we heard that on the radio. And one of the guys called the radio station. No audition, no what's the name of the band, nothing. He said, come on down.
LEIF ENGER: Now it just seems like mythic timing.
ROBERT VELLINE: We were the second act on. Waylon Jennings, who was one of the new Crickets at that point, went out and did a little tribute to the fallen stars. And then Charlie Boone, who's a disk jockey, he turned around to me, and he said, what's the name of the band? And we looked at each other, just dumbfounded. We didn't have a name. And I said, The Shadows. And he turned around to the microphone, and he said, ladies and gentlemen, here they are, The Shadows.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
LEIF ENGER: 40 years later, Bobby Vee is still playing, backed this afternoon by his sons, Jeff, and Tommy, and Robbie, in the basement of his home near St. Cloud. Any kinks in their Buddy Holly repertoire are long since worked out.
[BOBBY VEE, "BLUE DAYS, BLACK NIGHTS"]
(SINGING) Blue days, black nights, blue tears, I keep falling for you dear. Now you're gone. Blue days, black nights, my heart keeps on calling for you dear, and you alone. Memories of you make me sorry. I gave you reason to doubt me. And now you're gone. And I'm left here all alone with blue memories. I think of you.
Fargo, North Dakota, in the mid 1950s was hardly rock and roll country. In fact, it was country and Western country. Bob Velline grew up going to the Moorhead Armory to see Johnny Cash, Ernest Tubb, and Hank Snow.
ROBERT VELLINE: I remember very clearly, listening to the Lem Hawkins show. And one day, he played a song by Elvis Presley, called "That's Alright Mama." And I thought, boy, wow, man, country music. They didn't call it rock and roll. I just thought it was really good country music.
LEIF ENGER: As rock and roll gained steam and a name, the Vellines put away their trumpets and trombones and acquired guitars. Soon, Bill Velline and a few friends started a band, not to perform, just to play. Bobby was five years younger than Bill. He wasn't invited.
ROBERT VELLINE: My brother would go, and he'd come back all pumped about this music. Oh man, it was great. Well, what'd you do, Bill? Oh geez, we did some Elvis songs and some Buddy Holly. And oh man, Bill, you got to bring me along. I was five years younger. But he was a great friend, too. And I got there. And what I realized when I was listening to him play was that nobody sang. They just played the music. And so they would be playing some Gene Vincent song or something, and nobody sang. So they would get lost in the music. And I would say, Bill, it's the bridge.
(SINGING) Well, I wanna, wanna lotta, lotta lovin.
You know, wherever we were in the song. Oh yeah, OK thanks. And little by little, I started singing the songs. And it was easy for him to follow along.
LEIF ENGER: It was the sort of thing that was happening all over, the television. '50s, only real. Teenagers in 10,000 garages were strapping on guitars, mimicking and mangling riffs off their 45's, producing enormous noises and parental apprehension. And then, unlikely as it seemed, several performers at the top of the charts undertook a Midwestern tour. The Winter Dance Party, it was called, Holly and The Crickets, Ritchie Valens, the Big Bopper, Dion and the Belmonts. The Vellines and their buddies bought tickets.
ROBERT VELLINE: We had never experienced anything like that in the Midwest, to have a tour like that, with that many stars on it, traveling through, playing rock and roll. So in my 15-year-old life, that was one of the big events.
LEIF ENGER: A big event, Vee says, even before he went home for a sandwich and turned on the radio. Longtime WCCO announcer Charlie Boone was then a personality on the Fargo station sponsoring the concert.
CHARLIE BOONE: When we heard the news about the plane crash in Iowa, we were all shocked. We couldn't believe it. And we thought, what about the concert tonight? And I went on the air in the afternoon, and I could tell from listener calls that they wanted the concert to go on. And we kind of all felt, you know, as you will, you say, the show must go on.
LEIF ENGER: School was out at 3:00 o'clock, giving The Shadows, as they were soon to be known, four hours to get ready. In their sadness and excitement, they talked over what to play. They ate supper. They ran down town and bought matching sweaters.
ROBERT VELLINE: It was an emotional evening. I mean, it was a knee jerk, head jerk event. All of a sudden then, the spirit of coming together to get through this thing came down to me. It was our turn, and we had to play.
LEIF ENGER: What did you play?
ROBERT VELLINE: You know, I don't remember specifically. Bill and I talked about this years later. Neither of us could name anything. And we knew that we did some Everly Brothers songs, probably "Bye Bye, Love." We knew that we did some Little Richard. I think we did "Lucille" maybe. And we only did about a 20-minute set. But there was a fellow in the audience that came up afterwards and said, great job, guys. Great job, you guys are terrific. And gave us his card, he said, if you're looking for work, give me a call.
LEIF ENGER: The next day, Bobby Vee signed his first autograph when a girl approached him at school. Thereafter, The Shadows played every event they could get to. And on June 1, they went to Minneapolis to record "Suzy Baby," the first of three dozen hits Vee would chart in the 17 years to come.
[BOBBY VEE, "SUZIE BABY"] Suzie baby, where are you? Have you left me for someone new?
Bobby Vee will headline the tribute concert at the surf ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, shadowed this time by his sons, The Vees. The Crickets will be there as well and JP Richards, Jr, the son of the Big Bopper. Leif Enger, Minnesota Public Radio.
[BOBBY VEE, "SUZIE BABY"] Suzie baby, don't you know that I love you and want you so? Come back, baby. Come back home. Say you love me and never again roll. Suzie baby.