We had only been playing up above the Bagdasarian garage for about a month when my brothers decided they wanted to take the next step. "Playing the ukulele was fun," says Alvin. "But we wanted to really play rock and roll. And it's kind of tough to rock out while playing a ukulele."

Finding instruments for both of them was a lot more difficult than buying my drum set had been. "There were few sources for rodent-friendly electric guitars in the 1950s," says Simon with a bit of understatement. "And electric basses of any size were not all that prevalent. At that juncture, most rock and roll ensembles used a stand-up acoustic bass. And at the risk of overstating the obvious, a stand-up bass was not a viable option for someone of my height."

That meant Simon had to get creative. "I delved into a quick study of electronics, then made a sojourn to Burt's TV Repair to scrounge up some copper wire. I then began experimenting with one of our ukuleles, in an attempt to amplify it. Once I managed to give that instrument a sound quality that I found acceptable, I requested that Mrs. Gorman purchase a child-sized acoustic guitar. I then proceeded to 'electrify' it, if that is indeed the term, re-using the same parts I had utilized for the ukulele."

Alvin grins when thinking about his first guitar. "It was yellow, and had a little cowboy scene painted on it. Back then, it seemed everything made for kids was western-themed. It was a little weird that I was trying to rock out on this kid's cowboy guitar. But somehow, Simon made it sound pretty good. Not Chuck Berry-level or anything, but come on - it was a toy. I played it a lot those first few years - pretty much wore the damn thing to pieces."

While Alvin began trying to master his new instrument, Simon was having a tougher time building one for himself. "I concluded that the most prudent course of action would be to obtain a four-string tenor guitar, and then attempt to transform it into a bass. This in and of itself took a fair amount of planning. It was imperative that the bridge and tuning machines of the guitar be sturdy enough to withstand the alterations that would be necessary. I had considered and rejected over a dozen guitars, when I found a beautiful blue tenor guitar in a pawn shop. I purchased it, and after another journey to Burt's, I was able to begin transforming it into my first electric bass."

And here's as good a place as any to say this: if you're a major gear head, and are hoping to find out what instruments we've used, just know the answer is nearly always "whatever we could find" and "whatever we could make work". I at least could make do with standard drums, although I did have to arrange them a bit differently so I could reach them easier. But my brothers are basically stuck using whatever they're able to. Alvin says, "I never hung out with musicians all that much, but they seem to talk about 'dream gear' an awful lot. You know, daydreaming about that one insanely perfect guitar that they can't ever afford. And with me... well, whatever it is, even if I can afford it, I can't play it. If it's standard size, it's too big. I had to just resign myself to always using kid's guitars."

Soon after Alvin and Simon got their instruments built, we had a schedule in place. We would ride our bikes over to the Bagdasarian house and play for an hour or two after school on Wednesdays, and for a somewhat longer period on Saturday afternoons. A lot of the times, we wouldn't run into anybody from the Bagdasarian household while we were there. We'd just go in, play and then leave.

As we played more and more, our repertoire of cover versions began growing. And we found ourselves mainly drawn towards instrumentals. "This does run counter to our reputation as vocal performers," says Simon, "But with our instruments, we could achieve a reasonable facsimile of the songs we were performing. But the moment we added vocals, that facsimile fell apart. To put it a bit more crassly, Alvin might be able to play somewhat like Duane Eddy, but he could never sing anything near like Elvis Presley."

"We taught ourselves most of the instrumental hits of the day," adds Alvin. "There were tons of them back then. We also tried writing a few of our own. A lot of the rock and roll instrumentals just had simple I-IV-V chord progressions, so we wrote a couple that followed that form. Just learning the ropes. We never were trendsetters, really, especially back then."

Ross Bagdasarian, under the name David Seville, had already released a few singles and albums by that point. But he was mainly in demand as a songwriter. It was around that time that we found out that he had written "Come on-a My House" for Rosemary Clooney, and our opinion of him shot through the roof. Not only had that been a number one hit several years before, but it was something like a G-rated sex fantasy. "Rosemary was singing about fruit and Easter eggs," says Alvin, "and that's all we noticed most when we were kids. But once we hit adolescence, when we'd hear her sing 'I'm gonna give you everything', we all were like 'oh! now I get it!'."

Early in 1958, Dave began writing a song about a guy looking to get some advice on love. My memory's a bit fuzzy, but I think the original version had the guy consulting a yogi. You know, climbing a mountain in some Asian country to talk to the bearded guy at the summit. At some point while writing this song, Dave changed the yogi to a witch doctor. I don't recall how his original draft of the song went, but at some point, Dave stumbled onto a nonsense phrase: "Oo ee oo ah ah ting tang walla walla bing bang". I heard him singing that line a few times while walking through his house, as he tried to finish the verses. And it apparently managed to worm its way into my brain.

One Saturday, Simon and I were getting set up in that apartment above Dave's garage, waiting for Alvin to show up. We had just started fooling around with a basic bass-and-drum shuffle when Dave walked in. He looked kind of unhappy, and Simon asked him what was wrong. Dave told us he had spent the previous day at the studio recording "Witch Doctor", and it just hadn't come out the way he wanted. He didn't mention this to us at the time, but apparently he had tried to sing the witch doctor's lines himself. But even he could tell that that wasn't what the song needed.

I piped up, "That's the song with the fun part in it, right?", singing a quick "oo ee oo ah ah ting tang walla walla bing bang". I wasn't showing off or anything by singing that line. I was just a kid, really, and you know how excited kids can get when they can do something like that correctly.

Dave stopped and stared at me. Stared through me, actually. I had never seen that look before that moment, but I began to see it more and more as time went on. It was the look of a brain working the magic. Of pieces falling into place. Of creativity at work. And what happened next was something of a miracle.

Dave asked me if I would go into the studio the next day to sing on the record.

The miracle was that Alvin happened to be running late that afternoon. Had Alvin been there, I can guarantee that Dave would have asked him to do it. He was the lead voice in our trio, after all. But since he wasn't there, and since I obviously already knew the line, Dave asked me.

I of course excitedly agreed, and Dave explained how things would work. "I'll have Liberty sign you to a standard one-side deal. That'll be a flat fee of five dollars." That was certainly more than the allowance I was making washing dishes and folding laundry, so I nodded my head. "I'll bring the contract with me when I come to pick you up tomorrow. As your legal guardian, Mrs. Gorman will have to sign that for you."

Might I examine the contract before he signs?" piped up Simon.

Dave looked over at Simon and smiled, a bit condescendingly. "Of course, Simon." He turned back to me, and added that he expected me to be on my best behavior at the recording studio. "Be extremely polite to everybody, especially to the people in charge. And whatever you do, don't touch anything unless I say it's OK. The equipment in there is worth thousands of dollars, and I can't afford to have you wrecking anything."

"I'll be extra careful," I promised.

"Good. And make sure you get to bed early tonight - you have a big day ahead of you."

"OK. And thanks!" Dave left, and Simon and I got to talking. We were finally going to be recording! OK, it was just going to be me, but hey, it was a first step. I promised Simon that I'd pay close attention to everything, and report everything back to him.

Here's something I have in common with a lot of rodents. Whenever I get really excited, I literally start shivering in place, and my feet start to stamp of their own accord. I don't remember what my feet were doing, but I was definitely shivering when I entered the studio the next day. I tried to calm down by wandering around and looking at all the equipment and instruments. I did it slowly with my front paws clasped behind my back, so I wouldn't accidentally knock anything over. I felt several people giving me a look as I did so. I obviously never liked when that happened, but I had gotten sort of used to it. After all, a lot of people had never seen a rodent before. We're almost exclusively concentrated in the big cities in America, and even there, we're not all that common. Seeing a three-foot beaver or squirrel wearing clothes for the first time can be a little unnerving, and I probably looked especially strange in my little green cowboy shirt, scooting around in that big studio with my front paws behind me, shivering.

One of the musicians was very nice, though. If I remember correctly, she was the only woman in the room. She was holding her saxophone in her lap and talking to the guy sitting next to her when I toddled up. She turned to me, smiled, and said "Why, hello, youngster."

I was happy to hear a friendly voice, so I beamed a smile at her. "Hi!" I chirped back. "My name is Theodore. Theodore Chipmunk. What's your name?"

She laughed and said, "Hello, Theodore. I'm Jean. Jean Moore."

I bowed - Mrs. Gorman had taught us not to offer our paw to people, as it tended to make them uncomfortable. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Moore. Do you play the saxophone? I love the saxophone!" This was about half politeness and half truth. I actually loved all instruments, especially the larger ones I knew I'd never be able to play.

Jean laughed again. "Yes, Theodore. I play the saxophone. You'll probably get to hear me play it if you stick around for a while."

"I will!" I saw that Dave had finished talking to the engineer, and now he was giving me one of those looks. I decided to cut my visit short. "Well, goodbye, Miss Moore!" I waved and scurried back towards Dave.

"What was all that?"

"I was talking to Miss Moore. She's nice."

"Theodore, don't bother the musicians. They're working." This cheesed me off a bit. I was there to sing, so wasn't I working, too? But I decided against saying anything.

Dave indicated a wooden chair that he had set in front of a microphone. I clambered up onto the chair and stood on it, which put the microphone at the right height. But I had to lean over the edge of the chair a bit to get near the microphone, which worried me. I didn't like the idea of losing my balance and falling forward - Dave's warning on how expensive the equipment was was still bouncing through my brain. I climbed back down off the chair, turned it 90 degrees counterclockwise, then climbed back onto it. This allowed me to steady myself a bit by keeping my right paw on the chair back. I looked over at Dave, who had taken his place in front of the other microphone, and grinned. Dave just sort of rolled his eyes back at me.

"I've marked your choruses," he said, pointing to the music sheet set up next to me. "One, two, three, four, six, and eight on through the fade. I take the fifth and seventh solo."

"Righty-o."

Dave sighed. He was looking like maybe this wasn't such a good idea anymore. But he cleared his throat and addressed the musicians. "Uh, everybody, this is Theodore." I waved excitedly. "We're going to try a couple takes with him." There was some scattered conversation and laughter, but it died down pretty quickly.

The engineer pointed at me, and Dave said "OK, Sparks wants to check your microphone levels. Sing something for him."

I nodded and started singing the first thing that came to mind - "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". During the "up above the world so high" part, I glanced over at the musicians. Some looked bored, some looked a little uncomfortable, but Jean gave me a bit of a smile. Dave interrupted the start of my second verse by saying "OK, that's enough, Theodore. He's got it now." I stopped suddenly, which felt strange, like I had done something wrong.

Dave then looked over at the Mr. Waronker, the producer, and said "OK, whenever you're set?"

The conductor picked up his baton and quietly counted off the beat. "One...two...one two three..."

Bum bum bum bum, went the musicians. Dave began singing. "I told the witch doctor I was in love with you." Bum bum bum bum. "I told the witch doctor I was in love with you." Bum bum bum bum. "And then the witch doctor, he told me what to do." Dave's eyes got larger, and he glanced over at me. "He said that..."

I pressed my paw against the chair back a bit harder and began to sing. "Oo ee oo ah ah ting tang walla walla bing bang, oo ee oo ah ah ting tang walla walla bing bang." I didn't look at Dave or the musicians, focusing on the microphone in front of me. As I finished the chorus, I closed my eyes and started bopping my head a bit, getting into the music some more. When Dave finished the second verse, I opened my eyes and jumped in with the chorus again.

As Dave had indicated, I held off on the third chorus, letting Dave sing the first line alone. And it sounded a bit strange. Sort of uninspired. I got a hint at what it must have sounded like the first time he had tried to record it. I joined back in with him on the next chorus, and it sounded a lot better. Much more fun.

At the end, we sang the chorus four or five times in a row, which would give the producer and engineer lots of room to put the fade in. Sometime around the fifth repetition, I heard most of the musicians stop playing, so I stopped singing, too. I looked over at Dave, and he looked back at me. I thought it had sounded great, personally, but did anybody else?

One of the musicians in the back broke the silence. "Holy shit," he said, loud enough for the whole room to hear. Dave shot him a "not in front of the kid" look, but the whole room was breaking up in laughter. I still wasn't sure if it was good laughter or bad laughter until I spied the Mr. Waronker beaming at me.

"You nailed it, kid," he said.

I grinned from ear to ear and said "woo-hoo!" I shot a smile out to Jean, and she gave one back.

"OK." said Dave, now sounding far more confident than he had earlier. "Ready for take two?"

"Honestly, I don't think we need it," said Mr. Waronker.

Dave looked incredulous. "You never say that."

"I'm saying it now. That's the take."

Dave seemed unsure. "Well, one more for safety?"

Mr. Waronker shrugged. "Sure - why not?"

"OK. Safety take, everyone!" We regrouped, and ran through the song once more. And again, it sounded great. It may as well have been a playback of the previous take.

(That said, I'm positive that they released the first take as the single. Listen really closely to a clean copy of the track. Just before the second chorus, you can a very quiet creaking sound. I'm pretty sure that was me shifting my weight slightly on the wooden chair. I never mentioned it to anybody, and apparently nobody ever caught it.)

After that second take had finished, I leaped off the side of the chair and walked up to Dave. "We did it!" I yelled, throwing my arms wide.

"We certainly did," said Dave. He looked happier than I ever recall him looking.

Mr. Waronker walked up to join us. "Well done, Theodore." He pulled Dave aside and started talking to him, too quietly for me to really hear. Several times, they looked over at me and frowned a bit. What? Did I do something wrong? Finally, Mr. Waronker walked back over to me.

"Theodore, I was talking with Ross...um, Dave, I mean. And Dave tells me you like ice cream."

"You bet, Mr Waronker! Especially butter pecan!"

"Well, Theodore, you saved us a lot of time by getting the song done so quickly today, and I want to let you know how much I appreciate that." He pulled a business card and scribbled something on the back. "You can take this card to Henderson's Drug Store on the corner. Good for anything on the menu, any time you go."

I stared at the card in my paws like it was made of gold. Which, to a young and already-overweight chipmunk, it pretty much was. "I...I..."

"Hurry on over, Theodore," he added. "Dave and I will catch up with you shortly."

Dave still looked a bit perplexed, but he added, "Yeah, go on, Theodore."

"OK! Thanks so much, Mr. Waronker!" I was about to scurry out the door, but I made a detour to where Jean was. I waved the business card at her. "Hey, Miss Moore! I got a bonus - free ice cream!"

Jean burst out laughing. "You enjoy that, Theodore."

"I will! Bye!" I skedaddled out the door, just as Mr. Waronker went back into serious conversation with Dave.

But as I dug into my pineapple sundae at Henderson's, I mulled over what that conversation might have been about. Why give me a bonus? Did Mr. Waronker think that Dave hadn't paid me enough? Was five dollars not enough for singing a song? I knew some singers were rich and everything, but those were people like Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley. They made movies, and went on TV and stuff. I just sang one line for one song a few times. Five bucks seemed like a lot of money just for that.

When we got home, Alvin was out, but Simon was reading a chemistry textbook. (Simon used to read textbooks for fun all the time.) I asked if he would go up to the tree fort out in the backyard with me. That was a place we used to go when we wanted to talk in private. Once there, I told Simon all about the recording session - how everybody had gone from cynical to excited, and how I had been given the ice cream. Simon immediately looked jealous, so I said "It's good for anything as often as I want, so I can get you something next time we go down."

"Thank you." Simon's jealousy turned to gratitude pretty quickly.

"But Mr. Waronker gave me this after talking to Dave. It seemed kind of strange. And it got me thinking - maybe Dave didn't pay me enough?"

Simon shook his head as he cleaned his glasses. "I am not in any position to answer that with any degree of certainty. I am fairly ignorant in regards to the intricacies of music industry finance. But I'm beginning to think it would behoove me to investigate this situation further."

Anything Simon sets his mind to, he doesn't do by halves, and this was no exception. "I began to spend my spare time studying the economics of the recording business. I found other professional musicians to speak with, as well as a few people who were under contract at other record labels." He began checking out books on entertainment law from the library, and started keeping lengthy but well-organized notes.

A couple weeks after the recording, Dave brought me a copy of the "Witch Doctor" 45. I was a bit saddened to not see "FEATURING THEODORE CHIPMUNK AS THE WITCH DOCTOR" on the label, but that disappointment was overwhelmed by having a copy of my very first record in my paws. I of course immediately played it for Simon and Alvin. Alvin held his nose and giggled, but Simon nodded thoughtfully. "The melody is very insidious," he said. "This may indeed prove to be a very popular record." I couldn't tell if Simon actually liked the record or not, but that was often the way with him.

From that day on, I kept listening to the radio hoping to hear what I considered "my song". Alvin gave me some grief for that. He'd laugh and say, "Nobody's gonna play that dumb thing". And Simon pointed out that it sometimes took months for a record to make its way from the recording studio to the radio. So I stopped saying I was listening to the radio for that reason. I kept listening for it, of course - I just didn't say that's why I was listening so much.

Finally, one day, I was home alone doing my homework with the radio, and suddenly, I heard "Witch Doctor" playing. The disk jockey didn't announce it or anything - it was just suddenly on. I just stared at the radio, hearing Dave's voice, and then my voice, coming through that little metal speaker. It was a feeling that's hard to put into words, even half a century on.

I excitedly told Alvin and Simon about it when they got home. Simon congratulated me, but Alvin suggested I was making the whole thing up. "Are you calling me a fibber?" I threatened, and Simon had to calm us both down or else we would've been wrestling on the floor. Luckily, the station played the song again later that evening. Simon congratulated me again, but Alvin just stuck his tongue at me.

A couple of weeks later, Simon asked me to meet him back up in the tree fort. Once there, he unfolded a piece of paper. "Brother, your hunch was correct." He pointed to some figures he had written at the bottom of the page. "Your song is already a huge hit. It has only been commercially available for a few weeks, and already it is one of the top selling songs in the country."

This floored me. That little song I sang on? I mean, I'd heard it on the radio a few times, and that was really exciting. But I sort of assumed that that was as far as it had gotten. It was as popular as everything else I was hearing on the radio? "Catch a Falling Star" by Perry Como? "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" by Laurie London? "Wear Your Ring Around My Neck" by Elvis Presley?

Wait - my song was competing with Elvis Presley?

"Gosh," I said, dumbfounded.

Simon went on. "I would say with some degree of confidence that the record will sell in the

neighborhood of one million copies." A million? That number didn't really mean much to me. It was just something I said when I meant "a lot". Pointing to the bottom of the page, Simon continued, "A well-negotiated deal would pay the singer half a cent royalty for each single sold. Had we arranged for that rate for you, this record would be netting you in the neighborhood of five thousand dollars."

Five thousand? We were going to have to eat a lot of Henderson's ice cream to reach that figure. I sat there stunned for a minute, then finally asked Simon a question.

"Simon? Does this mean Dave...well, did he...cheat me?"

Simon set his jaw. "I do not believe the word 'cheat' would be entirely accurate in this instance. But Dave certainly might have offered you a percentage of the profits, or at least some bonus financial compensation now that the record is proving to be a success. And...he has chosen not to do so. If you ask me what that means, I would say that that indicates...well, I believe it would be safe to say that he is mainly looking out for himself."

"Is that why Mr. Waronker gave me the ice cream? Because he felt bad about it?"

There was a pause while Simon mulled over how to answer me. "I cannot imagine that the vice-president of the label would attempt to make up the difference in ice cream. Surely he might have arranged a more direct form of renumeration. It is my hypothesis that Mr. Waronker used the ice cream in an attempt to purchase something from you - your loyalty."

"My loyalty? What do you mean?"

"Consider. You provided your vocals, and you were paid five dollars renumeration. This fulfilled the terms of the contract They no longer owe you anything..."

"I know," I said glumly, thinking of the million copies Simon had mentioned.

Simon pressed on. "...but, perhaps more importantly, you no longer owe them anything."

"Why would I owe them anything?"

"Because musicians often sign long-term deals with record labels. Not just for one song, but many songs, and for many years. And they are bound by those terms for the duration of the contract." Simon pointed at me with his pencil. "You, brother, have been most fortunate. Dave most likely assumed that this would be a one-off deal, and you would not be singing lead again. Given the success of 'Witch Doctor', Liberty will assuredly wish to record more songs with a similar sound...and the vocalist that truly made the song unique is no longer signed to the label."

I let that sink in for a second. I hadn't really considered what might come next, since I had been busy enjoying the moment. I thought about Dave, and the idea that he would probably try to sign me for five-dollars-a-song again. "Well, does this mean...Dave doesn't care about us? At all?"

Simon sighed. "He probably does care, Theodore. To some degree. But he did not offer us a place to practice in his home because he cares deeply about us. He merely saw a potential business opportunity, and he chose to take advantage of it. I think it is important that we not lose sight of that. The key thing is that we must also regard this as a business opportunity, and take advantage of it, as well." He leaned closer to me. "Dave has a lawyer in his corner, to ensure that he at least gets his fair share on all his endeavors. We have no such person. It is imperative that someone look after our best interests, financially, as well."

"Can we ask Dave's lawyer to do that?"

"I had considered that. But I am not certain that that would be prudent. Mr. Judkins appears to be on very good terms with Dave. It is my impression that he would not work quite so hard on our behalf." Simon pursed his lips and looked off into the distance. "I have already learned a great deal about this business..." He trailed off, then Simon suddenly sat up straighter and looked me directly in the eye. "Theodore, do you trust me?"

I stared back at him. "Of course."

"Do you trust me more than you trust David Seville?"

That question I had to mull over for a second, but I nodded my head. "Yes. I trust you."

"Good. Promise me this one thing. Do not allow Mrs. Gorman to sign anything else on our behalf until I read it over. Please allow me to handle the finances from this moment forward."

And from that day forward, Simon was my manager. He never called himself that, and I never called him that. But that's what he was. If a contract was placed in front of me, or if somebody started talking finances, I'd just say, "You'll have to talk to Simon." Simon would read everything over, explain the terms to me, mention the potential hazards contained within, and then give his advice on whether I should sign. From the very beginning, I always trusted his judgment.

And not long after that meeting in the treehouse, that trust began to pay dividends.