The first part of 1960 was an incredibly busy time for me. I was now in two music groups that were signed to major labels, and I was helping to develop all of the material for one of them. And this was all happening while I was still in high school. I was fortunate that I didn't have any late night gigs or anything to interfere with my studies, but being in two music groups was still a major distraction. It was hard to concentrate on a chemistry lab assignment when a new Nutty Squirrels song was racing around my brain. I never blew up the lab or anything, but my grades kept hovering at a level that Mrs. Gorman found "a little disappointing". I didn't get too much grief from her, because Alvin's grades continued to be worse than mine. This meant that he got the bulk of her disapproving lectures. As the saying goes, sometimes you don't have to outrun the bear - you just have to outrun the other guy.

Early in 1960, in addition to the Nutty Squirrels LP coming out, the second Chipmunks album was also released. It's tempting to assign some blame here, as if Liberty was looking to undercut Hanover. But I really don't think that was the case. Liberty and Hanover actually chasing two different markets. And unfortunately, both albums sort of missed their targets. After the Top Five success of the first Chipmunks album, I'm sure everybody at Liberty was hoping for a repeat performance. Instead, the album didn't even crack the top thirty.

Sing Again With the Chipmunks featured a bunch of those country-tinged kid-friendly songs we had been recording - "Home on the Range", "I've Been Working on the Railroad", "I Wish I Had a Horse". One thing I liked about the album (in its original form, anyway) was that the lyrics were printed on the back cover. That was probably Liberty attempting to mimic the Sing Along With Mitch Miller albums that were selling like hotcakes at the time. It did make the album seem more like a children's album, since kids could read and sing along with us as the record played.

It was just as well that we didn't have to do any promotion work for the Chipmunks album, because Columbia immediately started asking for new Nutty Squirrels material. Simon spent a bit of time mulling over the direction he wanted the album to go. "While I am steadfast in my belief that the debut album was quite well done," remembers Simon, "I also felt that it would behoove us to attempt a slightly different direction for the follow-up LP. We most likely were not going to achieve success with songs entitled 'Mm-Hm' or 'O-Ho'. I contemplated how we might build upon what we had already done, and perhaps nudge it in a slightly different direction. And one obvious alteration would be to add more musicians."

It was clear we were going to need jazz musicians for this project, and we didn't actually know any other than Jack. So, once again, Simon reached out to Sascha Burland and Don Elliott. We told them our plans for our next album, and they were more than happy to give Simon a list of jazz musicians who they felt might be interested in taking part.

Simon's first call went out to a saxophonist that he had recently grown to love. "I had purchased a few records featuring Julian 'Cannonball' Adderley, and enjoyed them immensely. He played with a very 'warm but cool' tone, and felt he'd make an excellent addition to our next album." Simon goes on to admit, "I was hesitant to contact the man, as I felt he would consider our project too frivolous to partake in. But his phone number was on the list that Messers Burland and Elliot gave to me, so I decided that I should commence my search there." To our shock and delight, he agreed to record with us, and even helped round up some other musicians for the album sessions.

As fate would have it, we were only able to record one song with Cannonball before his other obligations pulled him away. But, as I like to remind myself, that's one more song than most musicians got to record with him. That song, "Yardbird Suite", also features some of the most fast-paced scatting Simon has ever done. "I practiced my vocal part continuously for a week," he confesses. "I felt intimidated. Mr. Adderley was a jazz musician who, if not world-class at the time, was certainly on his way to becoming so. And I was a not-quite-eighteen-year-old chipmunk best known for singing backing vocals on a Christmas novelty song. I felt it necessary to prove myself worthy of being on the record, even if it was technically my record."

That said, "Yardbird Suite" isn't one of my favorites. Cannonball plays some great sax, and Simon's part is excellent (and I don't think I'm half-bad, either). But the song just never comes together for me. It's just cool solo, cool solo, cool solo - it never really gels into a great song the way that "Salt Peanuts" did. It either sounds like jazz musicians are intruding a bit on the Nutty Squirrels, or the Nutty Squirrels crashed a good jazz date.

After recording "Yardbird Suite"' we recorded a pretty good version of "Bye Bye Blackbird". The fact that these first two songs had bird-related titles gave Simon an idea. "It was happenstance at first," as Simon tells it. "But after the first two songs had been recorded, I decided to attempt to do a full album of songs with avian-themed titles." We dredged up a couple more songs with bird-related titles, like "When the Red Red Robin Comes Bob Bob Bobbin' Along", and started arranging them to fit the Nutty Squirrels "feel". We left a few of the lyrics in, but mainly stuck with the "doo wah" scatting we had done on the previous album. We also wrote some new numbers, and gave them bird-type names. Since they were instrumentals, we didn't have to worry much about whether the titles were "fitting" or not.

It seems all siblings enjoy arguing about some trivial thing over and over, often long after there's any need to. And if you want to watch Simon and I launch into a ridiculously pointless debate for about an hour or so, you just need to get us both in the same room, and then bring up the name of the last song on the Birdwatching album - "That's Owl, Brother!"

"It's a dreadful title," Simon maintains. "It's not just a pun - it's a terrible forced pun. And were you not my brother, I would never have allowed you to talk me into using it." He said more than that, but I'm sure you get the idea.

One Thursday evening in July 1960., Alvin had gobbled down his dinner and scampered off to go hang out with his friends. Simon and I were eating at a more leisurely pace, and I was starting to think about the ice cream flavors in the freezer, when the phone rang. Since the Alvin Answering Service wasn't around, I took it on myself to go into the kitchen to answer the phone.

"Gorman residence - this is Theodore."

"Oh," a voice wailed. "I am so sorry!" The woman said more, but between her sobbing and the long-distance connection, I couldn't make anything out.

"Hold on," I said loudly, and hopefully clearly. "Let me put Mrs. Gorman on." I put my paw over the receiver (or as much of it as I could) and turned back to the dining room. "Mrs. Gorman! " I called. "Telephone! I think it's urgent!"

"Heavens," Mrs. Gorman said, hurrying to the phone. I handed her the receiver and watched her say "Hello?" in a worried voice. Part of me wanted to stay to see what the problem was, but Mrs. Gorman had drilled enough manners into me. I went back to the dining room, giving her the privacy she probably needed. After all, she'd tell me what was going on eventually.

Simon and I didn't have long to wait. Mrs. Gorman came back in the room a few minutes later, crying, and told us the whole story.

Mrs. Gorman had a sister named Dorothy Gurtz. Like Mrs. Gorman, Dorothy had married but been widowed early on, and never had any children. She decided to remain in her husband's town of Grand Island, Nebraska, and go back to teaching first grade. She and Mrs. Gorman exchanged letters every week, and Dorothy's letters usually ended "my best to the chipmunks".

Earlier that day, Dorothy had apparently suffered a stroke, and was partially paralyzed. She was in the hospital, but the doctors had been unable to stabilize her.

Simon and I sat next to her as she told us all this, our paws gently on her hands. "Are you going to go...be with her?" I asked.

"Oh, Theodore," Mrs. Gorman said. "I don't have the money to do that."

"Perhaps not," said Simon. "But we do."

"What? Oh no, boys. I can't take your money."

"You will not be taking it, Mrs. Gorman," said Simon. "We will be giving it to you. Tomorrow morning, I will talk to our trust manager about making an emergency withdrawal, and we will get you on the train by tomorrow evening."

It ended up being a strange evening of Mrs. Gorman crying and occasionally insisting that we didn't have to do this, and Simon (and I) very firmly stating that we wanted to do this for her. Eventually, we got her to agree, and sometime around three o'clock the next afternoon, all three of us were waving her off as the City Of Los Angeles train took off from the station.

On the taxi ride back home, I started thinking. Alvin was probably going to be completely invisible for the next week or so with Mrs. Gorman gone. I wouldn't have been surprised if I hadn't seen him at all. But Alvin actually stuck close to home, pitching in with extra chores, and even making dinner for us a couple of nights. (It was just peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but still - it was dinner.) "I felt guilty," Alvin said. "And I didn't even know what about. It's not like I caused Dorothy's stroke or anything. But I felt like I needed to be a good little chipmunk. For the time being, anyway."

Alvin went so far as to join us down in the basement for the first time in months. "This is going to sound dumb," Alvin says, "but I had never noticed that Simon had built a new guitar until then. I just assumed he was using my old yellow one. And the sound was so much better on the new one." Simon handed the guitar to him, and dusted off his bass that he hadn't played in a while. Then we ran through some of our old set list. "Maybe because I hadn't played with your guys in so long, or maybe it was me playing the new guitar, or me feeling the way I did that week. But it was really emotional. The music hit me hard. Even something really basic like 'Honky Tonk' seemed to sound so much better than how I remembered it."

"After playing with you guys that night," Alvin remembers, "I didn't hate the Nutty Squirrels anymore. Because, y'know, I finally got it. It was that magical musical stuff we used to do. You and Simon were still doing it." He smirks. "It still made me sad, because I wasn't a part of it. But, of course, I didn't apologize or ask to join the group or anything. I was still AL-VIN, after all."

The third Chipmunks album came out near the end of 1960. All of the songs on Around the World With The Chipmunks were written with the cartoon in mind, which was still almost a year away from its debut. We actually had to add some additional spoken parts at the start of each song, so the songs on the album would make a bit more sense. Dave would explain we were in France or Saudi Arabia or whatever, which would set the scene a little. Otherwise, listeners would probably wonder why we were singing that we wanted a camel, or why we were arguing with an Italian gondolier.

"This album wasn't that bad," says Alvin, looking at it for the first time in a decade or two. "The songs were sort of different from what we had been doing. The lyrics were silly, but that was part of the charm, really."

Simon shakes his head. "There may be some minor but pleasant ditties on that record, but I still shudder at the mention of it. Mainly due to one song - 'Japanese Banana'. From the moment I saw the sheet music, I loathed it, and it has been my least favorite Chipmunks song since that time. I do not recall why I did not opt out of participating in it, but I heartily wish I had."

As for me? I guess I'm more on Alvin's side. Sure, some of the lyrics are silly. But we were still aiming for the children's market, and silly is something of a virtue there.

Since the cartoon wasn't done yet (and they weren't entirely sure other changes wouldn't be made), they used the old style drawings for the sleeve. And whoever drew this one did a much better job than anybody else had done. They almost got Alvin's face right, and our body proportions were more like they are in reality. They even had us the right size - coming up to about Dave's chest. Alvin is wearing a red sweater, and I've got a green one on, so they at least got those two colors to match the cartoon ones. (Simon's is orange - maybe his blue one in the laundry.) But I have no idea what's going on with the drawing of Dave. He looks almost like Cartoon Dave's drunk older brother, screaming out the open door as Alvin surfs on the airplane's tail. Maybe Cartoon Dave had a few too many cocktails at the bar.

And, as always, all three of us chipmunks were naked from the waist down. And I feel I need to address this point really quick.

I do understand. It's a cartoon. It doesn't have to be just like reality. But it's amazing to me how, through five decades of cartoon renderings, from pencil drawings to CGI movies, not once did anybody feel the need to give us pants. And since these images have become the public's image of us, I'd like to make the following uncomfortable-but-necessary proclamation.

Alvin, Simon, and Theodore Chipmunk all have functioning genitals.

But we keep them covered up with pants when we are in public.

Thank you.