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FAIRBANKS — It’s a talent that very well might never have surfaced. Even after releasing 25 albums and more than a dozen hit singles, Bobby Vee, who plays the Carlson Center Monday night, admits he never intended to become a musician. Blame it on the weather, blame it on human error, but the 1959 plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper inadvertently launched what became a prolific career.

On Feb. 3, 1959, a young Robert Thomas Velline learned that the small plane carrying his musical hero, Holly, crashed in a snowstorm in an Iowa cornfield. The plane was on the way to Moorhead, Minn., where Velline planned to attend a concert the next night. Other acts, including Dion and The Belmonts drove to Moorhead, and a radio station made an attempt to salvage the show by broadcasting a plea for local acts to come forward to fill out the bill.

“We were a garage band (The Shadows, a name created on the fly). We were doing it out of sorrow, really. Buddy Holly was my favorite singer and I was excited to hear him play live,” Vee recalled. “But, it was not to be.”

A booking agent in the crowd liked what he heard and passed his card to the band.

“He said, ‘If you’re looking for work, give me a call.’ I didn’t know what work was. I was only 15 at the time,” Vee laughed. “I wasn’t planning on starting a career.”

Maybe not, but in many ways a musical career very well might have happened in another manner. Hailing from a musical family, Vee was always singing at a young age and recalled being placed by his mother, also a singer, on a stage when he was quite young. He sang for the audience. “I really liked that,” he said. “Maybe it was the attention, maybe the music, but I got to like that.”

He picked up the saxophone in high school, but felt a strong affinity with the burgeoning rock and roll scene popularized by Bill Haley and The Comets, Elvis Presley and, of course, Buddy Holly. Vee begged his older brother to let him join his band, but was rebuffed until it was clear Vee knew the words to the rock songs and could sing.

Then Holly died, and the Shadows ominously began their career.

Four months later, Vee’s first single, “Susie Baby,” recorded for Soma Records immediately charted, and began a string of hits for Vee..

“That was the start of it. It was really ‘Susie Baby’ that jump-started everything,” he said.

Vee said it was an interesting time musically. Rock and roll was changing the musical landscape, and artists were experimenting with a new array of sounds. Even Vee’s sound shifted in respect to the times. Yet, he always held onto to pioneering sound and essence of Holly.

“I felt like I was on the inside of a rock and roll sandwich,” he said with a laugh. “Before Buddy Holly it was Peggy Lee and Frank Sinatra and then all of a sudden rock and roll was in full force. On one side of the bread there was Elvis Presley, and then very quickly on the other slice, there was The Beatles. That was a great time.”

Now 66, Vee is still having a great time. His shows are more of a greatest hits affair, covering all his Top-10 singles, including “Run To Him,” Take Good Care of My Baby” and “The Night Has A Thousand Eyes,” as well as a tribute to Buddy Holly. There are some new songs as well, but Vee said he has no trouble becoming that teen idol again.

“I like the songs, and I can certainly slip into it,” he said with a final laugh. “It’s a mystery to me why the music has lasted so long ... but, I’m still having fun.”