Bobby Vee

Launching his career as a fill-in for the recently deceased Buddy Holly, Bobby Vee scored several pop hits during the early '60s, that notorious period of popular music sandwiched between the birth of rock & roll and the rise of the British Invasion. Though a few of his singles -- "Rubber Ball," for one -- were as innocuous as anything else from the era, Vee had a knack for infectious Brill Building pop, thanks to his ebullient voice as well as the cadre of songwriters standing behind him. Born in Fargo, North Dakota in 1943, Robert Thomas Velline was still in his teens when ...