Ross Bagdasarian, Sr.

Rostom Sipan "Ross" Bagdasarian (January 27, 1919 – January 16, 1972) was an Armenian-American pianist, singer, songwriter, actor and record producer. He was better known by the stage name David Seville, which he used on his recordings featuring Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Life and career
Bagdasarian was born in Fresno, California into a family of Armenian origin. As a young man, he performed in the Broadway cast of The Time of Your Life, written by his famous cousin, William Saroyan. Bagdasarian's first musical success was the song he wrote with Saroyan, "Come on-a My House," recorded by Rosemary Clooney in 1951. The lyrics are based on dialogue from Saroyan's novel The Human Comedy. They wrote the song on the post-Broadway tour bus of The Time of Your Life in 1939, and recorded it under their own names as a duet (Saroyan speaking the narrative, Bagdasarian delivering the lyrics in dialect) for Coral Records. ("Come on-a My House" inspired an answer record, "Where's-a Your House?" by Robert Q. Lewis.)

Bagdasarian played minor roles in films, of which the best known is his appearance in Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 murder mystery Rear Window. Bagdasarian portrays a piano-playing songwriter who composes, plays, and sings a song called "Lisa." His character lives in an apartment across the back yard of the film's lead character, played by Jimmy Stewart, and, in keeping with the screenplay's subtextual theme of social voyeurism, his dialogue is never clearly heard, and he appears only in long shots, sometimes filmed through a window. He is also the only other person seen during Hitchcock's notorious cameo appearance. Bagdasarian had also bit parts in The Greatest Show on Earth, Viva Zapata!, Destination Gobi, Stalag 17, Alaska Seas, The Proud and Profane, Three Violent People, Hot Blood, The Deep Six, and The Devil's Hairpin.

In 1956, Bagdasarian had a moderate hit under the alias Alfi and Harry with the novelty record "The Trouble with Harry," a song with the same title as the Alfred Hitchcock comedy-thriller movie of that year. He wrote The Ballad of Colin Black a tie-in song to The Proud and Profane. According to his son, Ross Bagdasarian, Jr., they were down to their last $200.00 when Bagdasarian spent $190 on a V-M tape recorder that would allow him to vary tape speeds. As David Seville, Bagdasarian had a number-one hit in the summer of 1958 with the "Witch Doctor," which was his first experiment with speeding an audio track to get a distinctive, squeaky, high-pitched voice, followed by "The Bird on My Head" which wasn't a hit. Then for the 1958 Christmas season came "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)" with The Chipmunks, for which he won two Grammy Awards in 1959: Best Comedy Performance and Best Recording for Children. Bagdasarian named the three Chipmunk characters after record executives: Simon Waronker, Ted Keep (Theodore), and Alvin Bennett.

Most consumer tape recorders of the day had changeable speeds, but usually in only multiples of each other, doubling or halving the speed, creating entire music octaves in the differences of sound between the speeds. Changing speeds of voices in these limited multiples creates extremely high or low pitches that sound a little too extreme for most purposes. (Walt Disney used half-speed recording for his Chip 'n Dale cartoon characters, for example, creating some difficulties for some audiences in always understanding the extremely fast dialogue, which always had to consist of very short phrases as a result.) For his professional releases, Bagdasarian's main recording innovation was to use tape machines that could vary speeds in between these extreme octaves, creating more understandable and thus emotionally accessible voices that worked well for both singing and spoken dialogue.

The first Chipmunk record, "The Chipmunk Song," had Ross Bagdasarian doing all the voices. (The spoken coda, when played slowly, reveals Bagdasarian enacting the roles of Theodore, Simon, and Alvin.) Thereafter, most of his Chipmunk records used female voice artists, recorded only about 1/4 slower than the normal playback speed. (Play one of his 45 records at 33 RPM and the original female voices will emerge.) The results were more understandable and warmer speeded-up voice performances that the public was able to respond to in great numbers.

After the success of "The Chipmunk Song", a series of follow-up hit singles were quickly released, also on Liberty Records. "Alvin's Harmonica" being the second, "Ragtime Cowboy Joe" being the third and "Alvin's Orchestra" being the fourth, with B-sides (like "Mediocre" and "Almost Good") sometimes featuring non-chipmunk semi-comedic concepts. Albums also cashed in on this trend, with the first album being released on red vinyl, successfully continuing well into the 60s with an album of the Chipmunks singing various early hits of the Beatles in 1964. (Even a Chipmunk album of punk and new wave songs was released in the 1980s by Ross Jr.)

Other trick-recording producers tried to imitate Seville's Chipmunks, with usually embarrassing results, for lack of good comedy writing and weak characterization. A failed novelty single by "Shirley and Squirrelly" is a good example.

Ray Stevens had somewhat better luck using similar speed-varying techniques on some of his novelty records, particularly his "Bridget the Midget" song from 1970 which hit the Top-5 in the United Kingdom in early 1971, as did Sheb Wooley with his "Purple People Eater" single in the late 1950s. Other novelty recording artists experimented with similar speed tricks—Buddy Holly recorded a Chipmunk-styled version of Little Richard's "Slippin' and Slidin'" for his own amusement, and his slow vocal was later released commercially—but none came close to the longevity of Bagdasarian's strongly defined three Chipmunk characters, Simon, Theodore, and the always trouble-making Alvin.

Following his hit records, Bagdasarian provided the voice for the David Seville and Chipmunk characters in the Chipmunks' short-lived 1961-62 animated television series The Alvin Show.

The Chipmunks' recordings had the performers often labeled as "David Seville and the Chipmunks" and the composer typically listed as "Bagdasarian." Bagdasarian Sr.'s last album was The Chipmunks Go to the Movies, released in 1969, almost three years before his unexpected death.

Death
Bagdasarian was found dead of a heart attack on January 16, 1972, eleven days before his 53rd birthday; he was cremated at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles, California. His ashes were moved many years ago by his son, Ross Bagdasarian, Jr.

All Chipmunk activity ceased until 1979, when Ross Jr began releasing Chipmunks recordings. He also became the voice for David Seville and the Chipmunks, except for those performed by Ross Jr.'s wife, Janice Karman, such as Theodore and all of The Chipettes.

Ross Jr. said he was surprised to find himself following in father's footsteps. “I revered my dad, but I didn’t want to do what he had done. That was his creation. Had he remained alive, I never would have done this. But when he passed away suddenly, it was a way of keeping my dad alive, and keeping what he created alive."

The 2007 film Alvin and the Chipmunks was dedicated to his memory. A title card shown in the middle of the end credits reads "This film is dedicated to Ross Bagdasarian Sr., who was crazy enough to invent three singing chipmunks nearly fifty years ago".

Singles
All songs were recorded under the name "David Seville", unless otherwise noted. For a look at The Chipmunks' discography, refer to the Alvin and the Chipmunks discography page.


 * "The Trouble with Harry/Little Beauty" (1955 Liberty 55008; recorded under the name "Alfi & Harry")
 * "The Word Game Song/Persian on Excursion" (1956 Liberty 55016; recorded under the name "Alfi & Harry")
 * "Armen's Theme/Carousel in Rome'' (1956 Liberty 55041)
 * "The Donkey and the Schoolboy"/"The Gift" (1957 Liberty 55055)
 * "Safari/Closing Time" (1957 Liberty 55066; recorded under the name "Alfi & Harry")
 * "Gotta Get to Your House"/"Camel Rock" (1957 Liberty 55079)
 * "Pretty Dark Eyes"/"Cecelia" (1957 Liberty 55105)
 * "Baghdad Express"/"Starlight, Starbright" (1957 Liberty 55113)
 * "Bonjour Tristesse"/"Dance from Bonjour Tristesse" (1958 Liberty 55124)
 * "Witch Doctor"/"Don't Whistle at my Baby" (1958 Liberty 55132)
 * "The Bird on my Head"/"Hey There Moon" (1958 Liberty 55140)
 * "Little Brass Band"/"Take Five" (1958 Liberty 55153)
 * "The Mountain"/"Mr. Grape" (1958 Liberty 55163)
 * "Oh, Judge, Your Honor, Dear Sir, Sweetheart"/"Freddy, Freddy" (1961 Liberty 55314)
 * "Yeah Yeah"/"Lucy Lucy" (1964 Liberty 55679, recorded under the name "The Bedbugs")
 * "The Song of Bruce and Dutch"/"I Remember Dillinger" (1968 Liberty 56041; recorded under the name "Bruce & Dutch")

Albums
The Music of David Seville (1957 Liberty 3073)

The Witch Doctor Presents: David Seville...and his Friends (1958 Liberty 3092)

The Mixed-up World of Bagdasarian (1966 Liberty 7451; recorded under David Seville's real name)