The fresh-faced Bobby Vee showed up the minute after Pat Boone's fame spread and revealed that while he was not a rock & roll singer, he was a great pop singer working within the old girl group and doo wop frameworks. Just how good he was is revealed in this Disky set of 18 tracks ranging from... [+] Expand

The fresh-faced Bobby Vee showed up the minute after Pat Boone's fame spread and revealed that while he was not a rock & roll singer, he was a great pop singer working within the old girl group and doo wop frameworks. Just how good he was is revealed in this Disky set of 18 tracks ranging from 1960-1968. All of Vee's hits are here, and some wannabes and a few junkers. But Vee had enough charm for Bob Dylan to impersonate him when he first arrived in New York. Check Anthony Scaduto's facts if you dispute this one. Hits include "Take Good Care of My Baby" and "This Night Has a Thousand Eyes," as well as "Devil or Angel" and his Buddy Holly impersonation, "Rubber Ball." Luckily there are selections from 1962-1964 as well, and "Stayin' In," "More Than I Can Say," and "Please Don't Ask About Barbara" all make appearances here, as do his comeback attempts in 1968, "My Girl/Hey Girl" and "Come Back When You Grow Up," which offered more than a shard of evidence that Vee was far from washed up as a pop vocalist. What the listener gets in sitting through these songs is that Vee truly had his niche: he was the teen rock & roller who was clean cut and sang with enough syrupy passion and verve to make mom feel all warm and fuzzy. He wasn't dangerous like Gene Vincent or Johnny Burnette or even Elvis, who was in the army when Vee made the scene. This was a rocker parents didn't feel so threatened by. And while this should have made Vee the enemy to "real" rock & roll kids, he had enough of a growl in his voice to sing it like he meant it, despite the fact that he looked like he walked out of a Cheerios commercial. The music here is the real thing -- rock & roll from an age when the music was still trying to define itself -- and Vee certainly played his part. Get it. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide [-] Collapse

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