Bobby Vee was mostly defined for a lot of listeners by the cloying pop/rock of "Take Good Care of My Baby" and related hits of the early '60s, but as his full recorded history reveals, he had a lot more strings to his bow -- not just after that song, but long before, as listeners discover on this collection of mostly early sides recorded with his band the Shadows (no relation to the English group of that name). This side of Vee's output is usually acknowledged in terms of his obvious debt to Buddy Holly, and the lanky ...
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Bobby Vee was mostly defined for a lot of listeners by the cloying pop/rock of "Take Good Care of My Baby" and related hits of the early '60s, but as his full recorded history reveals, he had a lot more strings to his bow -- not just after that song, but long before, as listeners discover on this collection of mostly early sides recorded with his band the Shadows (no relation to the English group of that name). This side of Vee's output is usually acknowledged in terms of his obvious debt to Buddy Holly, and the lanky Texas legend's influence can be heard throughout. In that regard, it's all derivative rock & roll, but it's also nicely done and pretty solid material by what amounted to a talented second-tier (or third-tier) act of the late '50s who needed a break -- and that break would come, though not on this material. It's still worth hearing in the same way that those innumerable Buffalo Bop compilations of late-'50s rock & roll and rockabilly sides are. The crudest stuff here, including "Lonely Love" (which apparently only exists as an acetate), is the most interesting and exciting, but even the ballad sides like "Love Must Have Passed Me By" -- self-produced by Vee and the band in Minnesota -- are worth a listen or two, not just for their unforced honesty, but also for what they reveal of what Vee brought to the table when he finally crossed paths with producer Snuff Garrett. One realizes that it was Vee who helped point Garrett in the direction that the producer later used to such startlingly good effect with a later artist, Gary Lewis. It's on these sides that the persona of the ur-nebbish -- which Lewis became in a successful ride to the top of the charts -- first really manifests itself within something close to Garrett's orbit. The sound is variable, in keeping with the rough sources for some of the material, but overall the package is a lot of fun and highly informative, and it's difficult to find anything to complain about in the addition of the better part of an hour of Vee's rock & roll rejoining the catalog. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi
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