![]() The song, originally listed on the record label (Liberty F-55168) as "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)", featured the singing skills of the chipmunk trio. The Chipmunks first officially appeared on the scene in a novelty record released in late fall 1958 by Bagdasarian. Alvin (named after Al Bennett), Simon (named after Si Waronker), and Theodore ( Ted Keep). He then came up with three singing chipmunks who were named, as an inside joke, after executives at Liberty Records. Main article: The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)Īfter the success of "Witch Doctor", Liberty Records asked Bagdasarian to create another successful novelty record. The technique was imitated by Sheb Wooley's " The Purple People Eater" and The Big Bopper's "The Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor". He again used the same technique to pitch up the voice to create the chipmunks. That moment inspired him to create his chipmunk characters. While driving in Sequoia National Park, Bagdasarian saw a chipmunk dash in front of him. It also reached the Top 40, peaking at No. Bagdasarian performed the song "live" (with a pre-recorded track of the pitched-up voice) on The Ed Sullivan Show.īagdasarian (again as Seville) recorded a follow-up song, " The Bird on My Head", singing a duet with his own sped-up voice as the bird. Bagdasarian did record a Chipmunks version of " Witch Doctor", which appeared on the second Chipmunks album, Sing Again with the Chipmunks, in 1960. Nothing makes any reference to chipmunks, but the song is sometimes included on Chipmunk compilations as if the Chipmunks had provided the voice of the Witch Doctor. The song was a hit, holding number one for three weeks in the Billboard Top 100 chart. The "magic" words themselves are nonsense: "Oo-ee, oo-ah-ah, ting-tang, walla-walla, bing-bang". Bagdasarian sang in his normal voice, while the witch doctor's "magic" words was in Bagdasarian's own pitched-up, pre-Chipmunk voice. The voice of the "witch doctor" was in fact Seville's own voice, sung slowly but recorded at half speed on the tape recorder, then played back at normal speed, thereby speeding up the voice into a high pitched squeaky one. Seville had bought a tape recorder and he experimented recording himself at different speed to create a duet between him and the witch doctor. released a novelty song (as David Seville) about being unsuccessful at love until he found a witch doctor who told him how to woo his woman. ![]() In 2019, The Chipmunks received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The characters have since featured in several television series and films, as well as other media. The Chipmunks were first depicted in animated form in The Alvin Show (1961). "The Chipmunk Song" became one of the best-selling singles of all time at 5 million physical copies sold. It has garnered two number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 and won five Grammy Awards, having four Top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 and three certified platinum albums. ![]() Through the successful franchise, the Chipmunks have become one of the most successful children's artists of all time. The franchise was revived in 1973 with the characters' voices provided by his son Ross Bagdasarian Jr. David Seville and the Chipmunks released several more records over the following decade until Bagdasarian's death in 1972. Later in 1958, Bagdasarian released the similarly engineered " The Chipmunk Song" for which he came up with the chipmunk characters and their human father, attributing the track to them. The group consists of three singing animated anthropomorphic chipmunks named Alvin, Simon, and Theodore.īagdasarian provided the group's voices by producing sped-up recordings of his own, a technique pioneered on the successful " Witch Doctor". Alvin and the Chipmunks, originally David Seville and the Chipmunks and billed for their first two decades as the Chipmunks, are an American animated virtual band and media franchise first created by Ross Bagdasarian for novelty records in 1958.
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