PEOPLE

’60s pop star Bobby Vee returns with a new disc

Bobby Vee plays the guitar at his family's Rockhouse Productions in St. Joseph, Minn. Alzheimer's disease forced the 1960s pop idol to stop performing in 2011.

ST. JOSEPH, Minn. — Bobby Vee still has the infectious smile, bright eyes, and boyish good looks of his 1960s pop idol days, when he scored such hits as “Take Good Care of My Baby,” “Rubber Ball,” and “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes.”

Alzheimer’s disease forced Vee to stop performing in 2011, but the 70-year-old Vee — who helped a young Bob Dylan get his start — is now releasing what may be the capstone to his career.

“The Adobe Sessions” is a loose jam session recorded with his family. It features some of Vee’s favorite songs from Townes Van Zandt, Gordon Lightfoot, and Ricky Nelson.

“There’s some songs I liked,” Vee said on a recent sunny winter day while at Rockhouse Productions, his and his sons’ recording studio in Minnesota. “I wanted to do some more music.”

The album is set for release today, the 55th anniversary of the plane crash that killed rock ‘n’ roll pioneers Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson. The tragedy also launched Vee’s career. That night, as a 15-year-old named Robert Velline from Fargo, N.D., he stepped onstage at the Moorhead National Guard Armory to take Holly’s place.

Within months the young singer and his band, The Shadows, which included his older brother Bill on lead guitar, recorded Vee’s “Suzie Baby” for Soma Records in Minneapolis. It was a regional hit, and Vee soon signed with Liberty Records.

He went on to record 38 Top 100 hits from 1959 to 1970, hitting the top of the charts in 1961 with the Carole King-Gerry Goffin song “Take Good Care of My Baby” and reaching No. 2 with the follow-up, “Run to Him.”

Vee kept recording into the 2000s. Then in 2011, doctors diagnosed him with Alzheimer’s disease, a degenerative and incurable brain disorder that afflicts more than 5 million Americans, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.

Vee performed his last show that same year, billed as his retirement, but he didn’t announce his diagnosis until a year later on his Web site. Vee said he knew his abilities were diminishing and he didn’t want to put his family through a public decline.

Family members said his memory hasn’t been affected so much as his speech. Vee gamely answers questions but becomes tongue-tied as he searches for the right word.

But he is still a skilled rhythm guitarist. During his interview, he broke into an impromptu jam session with his sons Jeff, 49, on drums and Tommy, 47, on upright bass.

Vee and his family didn’t plan to make an album when they set up drums and amps in Vee’s adobe garage north of Tucson after his diagnosis in 2011. They just wanted to make music.

“Our mantra from that point forward has been, ‘Don’t turn down any parties.’ We’re going to make every day as good a day as it can be,” Jeff Vee said.

For the 18-track album, Vee chose songs he would sing on family campouts while strumming a guitar: “Save the Last Dance for Me,” Gordon Lightfoot’s “Walls,” and Townes Van Zandt’s “If I Needed You.”

His three sons helped — Jeff on drums, Tommy on bass, and Robby, a guitarist — and daughter Jennifer added some lyrics.

The album also includes Vee’s cover of Bob Dylan’s “The Man in Me,” a nod to the folk-rock legend who got his start in Vee’s band in Fargo.

Vee said he hopes that being open about his disease helps others coping with the same fate.

Sometimes, he acknowledges, he wishes he could do the things that once came easily.

“But I’m not going to cry about it,” he said. “God brought me home. And that’s the deal.”