Do You Want To Dance/Lollipop/School Days/Little Star/Come Go With Me/Summertime Blues/Happy Happy Birthday Baby/Lavender Blue/Donna/Earth Angel/Wisdom Of A Fool/Sixteen Candles
Bobby Vee is an underrated singer today but he should be remembered for his own hits rather than the covers of other artists’ releases which comprise the tracks on Sings Hits Of The Rockin’ 50s. (US:85 UK:20)
“The songs are arranged by 'ballad side' and 'rhythm side', but most of the rhythm cuts are pretty mild. For example, Vee's versions of the Chordettes Lollipop and The Elegants Little Star share a side with his remakes of much harder-hitting Chuck Berry and Eddie Cochran songs. The ballads, too, tend toward light pop tunes such as Lavender Blue and Earth Angel. Vee's Buddy Holly inflected vocals put his own stamp on these well-known songs, and in some cases, the arrangements differ considerably from the originals.”
“Some of the covers sound too much like Buddy Holly and he should have sung them with his own style. I know he sounded like Buddy - he substituted him on the day the great Buddy died - but sometimes he overdid it and in 1959 there were certain rumours for some time that Buddy was still alive after hearing Bobby Vee on the radio.”
“I don't know if you can consider any of these tracks to be rock and roll, but they are great pop music. Classics in their own right. Many have become standards.”
“If any member of the pop music set was ever the perfect 'boy next door', it had to be Bobby Vee. A toned-down Buddy Holly with a squeaky-clean image, he was the music industry's response to a rock & roll scene gone mad. Unfortunately, too many people let the image get in the way of the music. One of the first genuine teen idols of the pop era, above all else, Bobby Vee could sing.”
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