Bobby Vee played the Moorhead, Minn., armory with The Shadows following the Feb. 3, 1959 plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. (Hoffman Talent Incorporated)

After 50 years in the music business, getting Bobby Vee the credit he is due both as an artist and as a person remains a difficult task.

For one thing, he doesn’t seek that credit, being quite content with the fact that, in his view, he has had a very interesting and sometimes incredible career. And primarily because he is, at heart, a humble person, a family man and rock ’n’ roll fan himself who is thoroughly appreciative of the life and career he has had, beginning publicly on the cold, sorry night of Feb. 3, 1959.

The story of Bobby, brother Bill and their group The Shadows helping to fill the void at the Moorhead, Minn., armory following the sudden death of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper has been  well-documented.

As Bobby states, it’s a subject that has come up in almost every interview he has ever done. Perhaps the point that is continually missed in such question-and-answer sessions is that quite simply, as one star sadly fell to earth, another thoroughly optimistic and joyful star arose to fill that void and is still with us today.

We are here to celebrate an outrageous  accomplishment in the music business — 50 years of great records, including some of the biggest popular hits of all time and millions of miles on the rock ’n’ roll road making people happy around the world, countless hours given over to talking with fans and posing unselfishly for now-cherished photographs. All of it was done with a perpetual smile and an optimism that is as young and vital in 2009 as it was even before “Suzie Baby” made it onto Soma 1110.

From that point forward, Bobby Vee’s records blazed a musical trail through the lives of every baby boomer and pop-music fan since and have become an undeniable part of  the very fabric of American pop culture of the ’60s. Perhaps because of the misguided opinions of so-called rock ’n’ roll purists who can’t see beyond 1957, the monumental discography of popular hits from 1959-1964 in particular get short shrift and are discounted. This not only bypasses Bobby Vee but also Gene Pitney, Rick Nelson, Del Shannon and Paul Anka, the 15-year-old Canadian who wrote and produced his own records and was savvy enough to hold onto his publishing.

My first contact with Bobby Vee was through the mail in the mid-’80s, when I was preparing to be the remote broadcast DJ at a vintage car/rock ’n’ roll show in Decatur, Ill. I wrote to Bobby’s agent for some promotional material, and while speaking to his representative on the phone, I broke out into “Run To Him” for no particular reason.

The agent laughed, we talked and the call was done. When the package came, there was a color 8×10 photo autographed “To Craig, the guy who knows the words to Run To Him.” I would imagine several billion people know those words and have probably made it known to Bobby and his associates ad nauseum, but there was that friendly acknowledgement, totally unnecessary and quite welcome.

Weeks later, at the event itself, as the on-air person I had the prerequisite backstage pass and made my way to the dressing room where I met Bobby and Del Shannon. In 1978, Shannon had actually taken my two little kids on a ferris-wheel ride at  the fair in Keokuk, Iowa. He had come to the club my band where was playing the night before, sat in with us and spent hours telling great stories.

Here we were eight years later, and as Del realized he knew me, any rock ’n’ roll star pretensions fell off of him like an old coat, and he was again the nicest guy you could ever hope he might be. He and Bobby  posed for pictures, did long, friendly interviews on the air and signed every album I could carry. Not only did Bobby & The Vees do my request, “Please Don’t Ask About Barbara,” but he dedicated it to me from the stage! I still clearly remember buying that single with the picture sleeve at the A&P grocery store record rack in 1962, so this dedication was a very big deal to me!

That was also the first time I saw Bobby arrive at an after-show gathering and sit until the wee hours posing for pictures, signing autographs and having casual, unhurried conversations with everyone who approached him until everyone had their autograph, their pictures and their stories before leaving.

Since then I have had the pleasure of crossing paths with Bobby & The Vees (Tommy Vee, Jeff Vee, Jeff Olson, Ar J. Stevens) at the Iowa Rock ‘N Roll Music Association Hall Of Fame induction in 2004 and most recently, and most pointedly, at the astounding week of shows known as “50 Winters Later” at the Surf Ballroom in Clear lake, Iowa, Jan. 28 through Feb. 2. Six days of rock ’n’ roll concerts and events, tears and joy, culminating with an all-star revue on the 50th Anniversary of the Winter Dance Party final show for Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. Despite being under the weather on the night of the PBS filming, that Bobby Vee optimism, professionalism and perpetual smile, born of 50 years of rockin’ and rollin’ and lovin’ it, won the day yet again.

Even though there was an emotional presentation made Feb. 2 to Bobby Vee by Terry Stewart of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and Jeff Nicholas of the Surf Ballroom, I still don’t think most people quite got just how significant this date in rock ’n’ roll history was — not only as it pertains to the loss of Buddy Holly but to the ongoing health and happiness of rock ’n’ roll and pop music that also began on that day all those years ago by virtue of the music, personality and sheer unrelenting optimism of one man — Bobby Vee.

He has had associations and friendships over the years with everyone from The  Crickets to Dick Clark, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Tim Rice and countless  legendary songwriters and performers and  an enviable circle of very special people, not to mention literally millions of fans around the world, sustained over decades in a notoriously very fickle business.

In this conversation, Bobby discusses his incredible 50-year career, recording details and candid vignettes that will entertain record collectors, musicians and fans alike, and gives us an insight into pending new releases of rare material and even a possible new direction for Bobby Vee on stage.

The key word in this story is “fun.” Fasten your seat belts, turn the Wayback machine to 1959, and hold on!

Listening to your latest CD again and again (I Wouldn’t Change A Thing) the song called “Whatever Happened To Peggy Sue” being such an integral part of it, also brings to mind the question for people who might not know: Whatever happened to Bobby Vee? You’ve been out playing all along.

Bobby Vee: (Laughs) Yeah, it’s what happens to me and you; that’s what’s so clever about that song. I guess our fondest thoughts are that we’re all still out playing, and she’s still being sweet and cute, and whenever we’re down in her area she always shows up. She’s a friend I’ve known since 1960, so those kinds of friends, The Crickets, who have been an integral part of my friendship circle, are alive and well.

So what records were you listening to in your early days, before you actually cut “Susie Baby,” before you became the guy on the records?

BV: Well, I was really influenced by the area that I grew up in, in Fargo, N.D., and at that time, they were playing Peggy Lee and Frank Sinatra, big-band stuff, Johnny Ray, Frankie Laine … I loved that stuff.

I loved country music. I’m old enough to remember a time before rock ’n’ roll, and I was listening to Hank Williams. I remember when I was 7 or 8 years old calling the radio station and asked them to play “Kaw-Liga.” That’s a great pop thing — it’s a great song, it’s a great lyric, it’s a great story. “Settin’ The Woods On Fire,” a lot of the old Hank Williams stuff. Went to the shows, [and] my brother Bill was five years older than me, but he would take me to the shows. I saw a lot of people — never saw Hank Williams, but I saw Johnny Cash a couple of times, Marty Robbins a few times, Jimmy Newman, Ernest Tubb and that’s the stuff I loved. I didn’t get to see Johnny Horton, but he was another one of my favorites. That was the rockin’ part of country that really appealed to me.

The Honky Tonk Man … I was 12 or 13 when he got killed, and I was a paper boy, picking up the papers one morning and reading that he’d been killed, and I cried.

BV: Oh, I know. It was a sad day. I think it was 1960. He had so many great records, [with] Floyd Tillman and all the people that  worked with him; it was a pretty unusual record sound that he came up with. And The Louvin Brothers … I used to love those guys, and all that great old hillbilly stuff.

So what did The Shadows do at their gigs? Bobby Vee And The Shadows in ’58?

BV: Bill and I sang together a lot. We’d do some Everly Brothers and Elvis Presley … Buddy Knox was the first rock ’n’ roller to travel through our part of the country,  and so I saw him around the time of “Party Doll.” He was out touring with that. Jimmy Bowen was with him, and Don Lenier on lead guitar, and what was the drummer’s name? Dave Axel or something like that. I think that’s who played on the record, but Dickie Do came out, Dickie Do & The Don’ts, and he was playing drums with him.

It was, you know, for living in Fargo, I mean everything was so inaccessible for rock ’n’ roll, and all of a sudden, they were playing in my neighborhood and packin’ ’em in. I saw Ronnie Self. I don’t know if you remember his records? “Bop A-Lena” … good record, good writer. [He] wrote for Brenda Lee. He came through one time, and he played with a band called the Minnesota Wood Choppers, and I could tell … I mean I was so young, but I could tell, and I thought, “He’s not having any fun at all.” He was supposed to do two sets, and the band … they were kind of a polka band. He only did the one show. But I saw Gene Vincent five times in 1958, and that was an amazing thing. I saw him in Fargo I think three times and at Moorhead a couple of times, and Fargo being a good, big town, he was just out doing business.

So these were the days when The Surf and places like that were the better places to play.

BV: Absolutely, right, and that’s … you know it’s special for me when I go back to Clear Lake, Iowa, and play The Surf Ballroom. Nowadays they’ve turned it back  into the original ballroom; they’ve cleaned  the walls off, and you’ve got the waves and the palm trees. And there’s a few places like that around. We were talking about it, that Perry, Iowa, thing I did; that was a place I’d never played before, and I thought I had played every ballroom in the Midwest. It’s all farm country, pick-up trucks and combines and rock and roll! That’s the Midwest, and I’ve always loved that part of it.

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Estelle Bennett, 67, one of the Ronettes, was found dead in her Englewood, N.J., apartment Feb. 11, 2009. The time and cause of death have not been determined.

The Ronettes — sisters Veronica “Ronnie” and Estelle Bennett and their cousin Nedra Talley — signed with Phil Spector’s Philles Records in 1963. The trio was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2007.

The Ronettes’ recording of “Be My Baby” epitomized the famed “wall of sound’’ technique of its producer, Phil Spector; the song hit No. 2 on Billboard magazine’s pop-music chart in 1963. The group’s other hits were “Walkin’ In The Rain” and “Baby I Love You.” After the group’s breakup around 1967, Bennett rarely made public appearances.

Molly Bee, 69, the country singer who shot to fame at age 13 with the 1952 novelty hit “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,’’ died Feb. 7, 2009, at a hospital in Ocean-side, Calif., of complications following a stroke, said her manager, Rick Saphire.

Born Mildred Nungester Wolfe, Bee was just 10 when she started her music career, singing the Hank Williams classic “Lovesick Blues” on country star Rex Allen’s radio show. Three years later, she had a hit song and a regular role on “Hometown Jamboree,” a Los Angeles country-western TV show.

She made her movie debut in 1954 in “Corral Cuties,” opposite country star Tennessee Ernie Ford, with whom she had recorded the duet “Don’t Go Courtin’ In A Hot Rod Ford” the year before. She also recorded such songs as “Young Romance,” “5 Points Of A Star’’ and “Don’t Look Back.’’

Bee had a regular role on Ford’s TV variety show and played Pinky Lee’s sidekick on “The Pinky Lee Show.”

Blossom Dearie, 82, a classically trained pianist who transformed herself into a jazz singer with a baby-doll voice heard in New York and London cabarets for three decades, died Feb. 7, 2009, of natural causes.

Born in East Durham, N.Y., Marguerite Blossom Dearie was a member of The Blue Flames by the mid-1940s. Dearie began her solo career in postwar Paris. She signed a six-album contract with jazz impresario Norman Granz, the owner of Verve Records. Dearie appeared regularly at London nightclubs in the 1960s.

In 1974, she founded Daffodil Records, writing the music to lyrics by Johnny Mercer and others. She sang several songs in the “Schoolhouse Rock” educational series, including “Figure Eight.”

Her last record was the 2003 single “It’s All Right To Be Afraid,’’ dedicated to victims and survivors of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. She last performed in 2006 at a cabaret in midtown Manhattan.

Punk pioneer Lux Interior, 60, co-founder and lead singer of The Cramps, died Feb. 4, 2009, of a pre-existing heart condition at a hospital in Glendale, Calif., according to a publicity statement.

Interior, whose real name was Erick Lee Purkhiser, met his future wife Kristy Wallace — who would later take the stage name Poison Ivy — in California in 1972.

The pair moved to New York and started The Cramps with Interior on lead vocals and Ivy on guitar. The group became an essential part of the late 1970s early punk scene centered at the Manhattan clubs CBGB and Max’s Kansas City.

Steel guitarist Tom Brumley, 73, who performed with Buck Owens and Rick Nelson, died Feb. 3, 2009 at Northeast Baptist Hospital in San Antonio. He had suffered a heart attack Jan. 26.

Brumley played steel guitar with Buck Owens and The Buckaroos from 1963 to 1969 and also played on Nelson’s “Live at the Troubadour’’ album in 1969.

The son of legendary Gospel songwriter Albert E. Brumley, Tom Brumley started playing bass in a band with his brothers at age 14. He was honored for his steel guitar work by the Academy of Country Music. He also was a member of the Texas Steel Guitar Hall of Fame and International Steel Guitar Hall of Fame. From 1989 to 2003, Tom Brumley appeared at The Brumley Family Music Show in Branson, MO.

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