"But the most beautiful person I ever been on stage with..."

When Bob Dylan paid tribute to an old mate.

Robert Thomas Velline was born on April 30 1943. He later, as a performer, used the name Bobby Vee. He volunteered for replacing Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper, who had died in a tragic plane crash, and were given the job of filling in for Holly and his band at the Moorhead engagement. Their performance there was a success and started Vee's career as a popular singer.

Young Bobby Zimmerman joined Bobby Vee and The Shadows in the summer of 1959 for a brief period of time. The Shadows thought they needed a pianist. Dylan met Vee in a record store in Fargo. He introduced himself as Elston Gunnn (with three n’s). But the job didn’t last long (2 shows?). Vee explained:

“It was ill-fated. I mean, it wasn’t gonna work. He didn’t have any money, and we didn’t have any money. The story is that I fired him, but that certainly wasn’t the case. If we could have put it together somehow, we sure would have. We wished we could have put it together. He left and went on to Minneapolis and enrolled at the University of Minnesota.”

When Bobby Vee attended a Bob Dylan concert in St. Pauls in 2013, he paid tribute to him with a cover version of “Suzie Baby” and a few kind words. Bobby Vee was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2011 and died on October 24, 2016 at the age of 73.

“I lived here a while back and since that time I been playing all over the world, with all kinds of people, everybody from Mick Jagger to Madonna! […]
But the most beautiful person I ever been on stage with, was a man who’s here tonight, who used to sing a song called “Suzie Baby”. [… ]