Born August 30, 1941 in Houston, Texas, son of the songwriter Buster Dees. Considered one the great male jazz vocalists with a long and stellar career, Dees has an immediately identifiable sound and style. His straight-ahead vocals coupled with his words and music strip away sentimentality and go to the very heart of love's highs and lows.

Dees has had a long career as a studio singer. Dees was first featured as a young performer on The Steve Allen Show in the 1960s, and Steve Allen, already a successful songwriter, was impressed with the young man’s voice. He offered the young singer a chance to record an album of Allen's own compositions. The resulting album, [m=1141655], gained the singer some notice when it was released on Dot Records in 1964. This would lead to a recording contract with Capitol Records in the late 1960s, during which he would record two further albums.

He has been recorded in numerous films and television shows and movies, along with hundreds of commercials and jingles. His voice has appeared in such films as A Walk in the Rain, Day of the Locust, The Happy Ending, Buddy Buddy, Sabrina, and Slow Dancing in the Big City. His vocals have been featured in nine episodes of The Simpsons television series.

Dees' ability to re-create the vocals of Frank Sinatra came in handy when HBO produced the original biopic The Rat Pack in 1998. When Sinatra's estate refused use of his original recordings, the cable network turned to Dees, whose singing provided some of the film's best moments.