I had been watching musical artists perform on TV for as long as I can remember. Any time a variety show had a singer on, even one I wasn't really a fan of, I'd stop whatever I was doing and watch. My brothers and I had figured out pretty quickly that most of the performances we saw were lip-synched...or "faked", as we called it back then. And when "Witch Doctor" became a hit, I assumed (correctly) that Dave would start getting offers to (fake-) perform it on TV. But I also sort of assumed that he was going to ask me to do those performances with him. Why wouldn't he? He had been grooming us to be musical performers, and now one of us had sung on a hit song with him, singing the catchiest part of the song. I imagined the two of us in front of the cameras, miming the song together...maybe with me in a witch doctor costume!

But that never happened. Once in a while, there would be some puppet or something on TV flapping its mouth to my lines. But usually Dave would just appear alone, with my lines going by without remark. He got to perform on The Ed Sullivan Show, which was a huge deal at the time. He dressed in a suit with a pith helmet, and they had this dumb special effect going where he appeared to make a woman turn upside-down and right-side-up, over and over. Once in a while, I'll watch the clip on YouTube and wonder how much better it would've been with a witch doctor chipmunk involved.

One night, Simon and I were watching Dave mime the song on yet another TV show. When that segment ended, I complained, "How come I don't get to be on there with Dave?"

Instead of answering, Simon got up and left the room. He came back with a few of my 45rpm records. He handed me one - "Dance With Me Henry (Wallflower)" by Georgia Gibbs. "Who is the man who sings the opening line of this song?" Simon asked me.

"Um...I don't know. Who?"

Instead of answering, he handed me another record - "Topsy" by Cozy Cole, one of my favorites. "Who plays the organ on this record?"

I just shrugged.

"Now bring to mind your recording session with Mr. Seville. Consider all the musicians, as well as all of the people behind the scenes who helped create that record." I though about that for a second, then Simon asked, "And how many of them are mentioned by name on the record label?"

"Just Dave. And the producer."

"This is exceptionally commonplace," explained Simon. "It takes many people to create a record, but only one or two names appear on the label." Simon indicated the TV. "Or on television."

I stared at my records for a minute while I gave it some thought. "That doesn't seem fair," I mumbled.

"This appears to be a recent development," said Simon. "You presumably did not consider it unfair to the organist on 'Topsy' until just now." I must have looked miserable after he said that, because Simon suddenly smiled a bit. "It is not my intention to depress you, brother. I simply want you to be cognizant of how the mind works." He tapped his head for emphasis. "The mind desires a simple name to attach to a recorded work. It does not matter if the name is the singer's real name...or even if the proffered name is not on the record at all."

I thought about that for a bit, then nodded. Simon was right, as he usually was.

He turned the TV off, then sat down next to me. "I am elucidating on this topic because I believe the point is a critical one." He indicated the stack of records he had brought out. "Very few people get to have their names memorialized upon a record label. Is that the one thing you would say that you truly desire?"

I closed my eyes and thought. What did I want? Did I want my name on record labels? Well, yeah, that'd be neat - seeing "Theodore Chipmunk" in silver type on a turquoise Liberty Record label. But was that what I was really after? I let my wander a bit more. I thought back to my recording session, and I was reminded of Miss Moore. She played the saxophone on that song, and she didn't get any credit for it. How many other records did she play on? Her name would probably never appear on a record label. But she kept coming to play on sessions. And if appearances were any indication, it looked like she loved doing it. She loved making music.

Just like I did.

I loved getting to record with all of those musicians. And all the times playing drums. And just harmonizing with Alvin and Simon. If I had to choose between making music and anything else, I'd probably choose making music every time.

Finally, I opened my eyes, and stared at Simon. "No. What I desire is...I want to make music."

Simon grinned, stood up, and left the room with my records. We never really talked about it again, but the conversation stayed in my mind. Not just for a while, but permanently. When things went wrong, when problems arose, when labels and managers and bandmates started plotting and maneuvering and fighting, I held fast to what I had said that night in front of the switched-off TV: "I want to make music."

Not surprisingly, Liberty Records was very eager for a follow-up to "Witch Doctor", and they wanted it as soon as possible. So in between his TV appearances, Dave sat down and tried to write another song. Since "Witch Doctor" was sort of a fluke, it's a bit surprising that he didn't follow the exact same template. He could have written something like "The Witch Doctor Returns", but he didn't. It's possible that Dave didn't feel like playing foil to a witch doctor again. Maybe he just felt an artistic itch to try something different. Or maybe he just couldn't come up with anything along those lines.

Whatever the reason, Dave eventually came up with a song called "The Bird on My Head". In the lyrics, Dave and the bird are simply standing around bemoaning their respective lots in life. Dave has no girlfriend, the bird has no nest, and so forth. Now that I think about it, it was a lot like the song "Ain't Got No Home" by Clarence "Frogman" Henry that had come out a few years previous. The main difference was that Clarence sang as both himself and the frog on his record. (And he sang as a girl, to boot.) On Dave's record, the bird was going to be sung by a chipmunk.

While Dave was finishing up writing the song, I had an idea. Instead of having Simon standing next to me, coaching me on my contract, why not ask Dave if Simon could sing this one himself? That way, Simon could navigate through the contract negotiations directly. Simon thought this was an excellent idea, so I approached Dave about it. "I think Simon should have a turn next," was how I put it. Dave said that was very nice of me, and he added that having a different high-pitched voice for this record would probably be a good idea. He asked me to come along to the session in case Simon didn't work out, and I had no trouble saying yes to that.

About a week later, Dave drove to our place to take Simon and me to Liberty Studios for the recording session. And just like the last time, he first asked Mrs. Gorman to sign a contract. I watched nervously as she once more handed the one-page contract to Simon. Simon picked up the contract and read it over carefully. Then he picked up a pen and started writing. Dave didn't notice at first. But as the sound of the pen scratching across the contract continued, Dave looked over at Simon with some confusion.

"Simon, Mrs. Gorman just needs to sign at the bottom," Dave repeated.

Simon held up a finger of his right paw, indicating Dave to wait. Meanwhile, he kept up the writing with the pen in his left paw. Finally, he stopped and put the pen down. He read over what he had written, then handed the paper back to Dave.

Dave looked at the contract, now with a lot of small but legible printing in the margins. "What's all this?"

"Alterations and addenda."

Dave scrunched up his eyes and started reading. After a minute or so, he stopped and looked down at Simon. "You can't be serious."

Simon looked at Dave evenly. "Why would I not be serious?"

"This isn't our standard one-record deal."

"Perhaps I am not your standard one-record deal singer," countered Simon.

Dave turned to me. "Theodore..." he began.

I shook my head and pointed to the contract. "This is the deal we want," I said . "Any of us."

Dave next looked at Mrs. Gorman, who simply smiled a bit. "The chipmunks know more about these contracts than I do. I'll sign only what they ask me to sign."

"Do you believe the terms to be unfair?" asked Simon.

"They seem a little...excessive." Dave sounded a bit condescending.

"How much were you paid for performing on 'Witch Doctor'?"

"Come on, Simon. You know I handled the bulk of that song."

"Do you not feel that Theodore's contribution was essential to the success of that particular record?"

Dave drummed his fingers on the table for a few seconds, then shook his head. "I'll have to get approval on this," he mumbled. He had Mrs. Gorman sign the contract, then took us out to the car. On the ride over, I glanced over at Simon, who gave me a quick reassuring smile. I nodded in return - he apparently had anticipated this happening, and I was determined not to mess it up by saying anything.

As soon as we got to the studio, Dave had us take a seat in a small room. A few minutes later, Mr. Waronker entered the room. "Simon? I'm Mr. Waronker, co-founder of Liberty." He shook Simon's paw gravely, then said, "Dave here says you'd like to make a few changes to our standard contract." Simon simply waved his paw towards the paper on the table. Mr. Waronker picked it up and read it, frowning. He then put the paper down and looked off in the distance for a moment. Finally, he turned to face Simon again.

"That's a fair chunk of change you're asking for," he said uncertainly.

"Based solely on its performance," clarified Simon. "Half a cent per record sold with renumeration for the first five thousand records up front."

"It still seems kind of high."

Simon set his jaw. "I would hazard to say that we are worth it," he said confidently, subtly including me back into the negotiations.

Mr. Waronker looked at Simon for a minute, then picked up the pen and signed the bottom of the contract. He glanced over at Dave and muttered something unintelligible before walking out the door.

After that little bout of drama, the recording itself was somewhat muted. I got to introduce Simon to Ms. Moore, but after that, the recording session began. Simon stood on the same chair that I had, and even sang "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" for his mic check. (To this day, we both still use that song to check our mic levels. Old habits die hard.) And although Simon sang his lines quite well, they ended up doing five takes. One or two were due to flubbed notes, but I think Mr. Waronker kept asking for additional takes because he was hoping for that magic "thing". That sense of excitement we had had after the first take of "Witch Doctor".

To be honest, I don't think they would've gotten it even if they had recorded all day. During the last take, I finally decided that the song just wasn't that great. It had some pretty good lyrics, and everybody sang and performed it well. But it didn't have that killer hook that "Witch Doctor" did. As such, it was just this mildly pleasant song with a human and a high-pitched voice trading lines.

Time proved that my basic hunch about the song was correct. "Witch Doctor" had hit number one on the Billboard singles chart and had stuck around the top ten for three months. "The Bird on My Head" eventually peaked at number thirty-four, fell off the chart in a month, and was utterly forgotten a year later. Simon still got a good payday out of it - far more than I had made - but it was still quite a disappointment after the success of "Witch Doctor".

The song might have charted a bit higher just for the basic human/chipmunk voice dynamic it contained, but another song came along and stole its thunder. A song that, ironically, was recorded on the exact same day as "The Bird On My Head". And it featured the vocals of yet another chipmunk.

It had started a week previous to the "Bird on My Head" recording date. The phone rang at our place, and Alvin happened to be the one who answered.

"The guy on the line was Neely Plumb, a music arranger," Alvin explains. "No idea how he got our number." He was working on a song with country singer Sheb Wooley, and he thought the song would work well with the addition of "that high-pitched singer from that witch doctor song". Mr. Plumb was wondering if maybe that singer would be interested...?

"I should've said 'Actually, that was Theodore'. Or 'You'll have to talk to Dave Seville'. But I was steamed at you two. You had already sung on a big hit, and then you'd set it set up so Simon was going to go sing on the next one. I thought that was totally unfair. How come you two were getting to do all the singing? Wasn't I the lead singer of the group? I decided, hey, this is my chance to do some singing of my own. So I just told Mr. Plumb, 'sure, I'd be glad to,' as if I were the one who sang on 'Witch Doctor'. Never lied about it, but never corrected that misconception of theirs, either. I knew what day you and Simon were headed to the studio, so I asked if we could record on that day. Oh, and if I could possibly get a ride to the recording session...?"

Soon after Dave took Simon and me to record "Bird", Alvin had Mrs. Gorman sign a one-song contract for him for twenty dollars (making me officially the cheapest chipmunk). And while Simon was arguing with Mr. Waronker, Alvin was getting driven to a recording studio for MGM. He rehearsed his lines a few times, and then stood next to a low microphone to record his five lines.

"I wouldn't eat you 'cause you're so tough."

"I want to get a job in a rock and roll band."

"A wop bop a loola bop a loo bam boom."

"I like short shorts!"

"...te-quil-a."

Alvin says it took six or seven takes. "Sheb had trouble with that 'bless my soul, rock and roll' bit, and I botched the 'a wop bop' line once. But everybody seemed pretty happy with the last take. I got paid cash at the end of the session, got a ride home, and I figured no one was the wiser."

A few weeks later, we were messing around at home, with our small radio playing in the background. None of us heard the DJ announce it, but once "The Purple People Eater" started, Alvin perked up and started dancing around the room, singing Sheb's lyrics. I figured Alvin had just heard this song a few times, and had already memorized the lyrics. But then Alvin got up close to me and mimed the "I wouldn't eat you 'cause you're so tough" line in a rather mocking way.

And my jaw hit the floor. There was no mistaking that voice - that was Alvin singing on that record.

Simon and I stood speechless as Alvin kept bouncing around the room, lip-synching his own lines in the song, right down to the last "te-qui-la". When it ended, Alvin stood with his hands crossed over his chest, with a "what do you think of that" look on his face.

As the next song began, Simon walked over and snapped off the radio. He also crossed his arms, and said "So? Would you care to explain?"

Alvin grinned and tapped his chest. "I've got a secret," he said, mimicking the popular TV game show of the time.

"Your secret was just broadcast to the greater Los Angeles area," Simon pointed out. "And if I might prognosticate, its influence will not be confined to that area for long."

Alvin suddenly dropped the coy act, and looked almost hopeful. "You really like it? You think it's gonna be a hit?"

"I would say that that is probable," admitted Simon, and Alvin tapped his foot excitedly. "And how do you think David Seville will react upon hearing it?"

Alvin made a rude sound with his mouth. "Dave. Who cares what he thinks? You and Theodore keep skipping off to the studio to record without me, so why shouldn't I look after myself?"

I said, "Alvin, we're trying to get this recording thing going for all of us."

"Riiight," said Alvin cynically.

Simon said, "Perhaps a query would throw the situation in relief. What was your remuneration for recording that particular record?"

"What'd they pay me? Twenty smackers." Alvin looked over at us with a smug grin. "More than double YOUR paydays. Up front, too."

"Actually," said Simon, sounding just as smug. "My initial compensation was twenty-five dollars. In addition, I negotiated a rate of half a penny per single and a quarter penny per album sold."

Alvin laughed. "Half a penny! Big deal!"

Simon pressed on. "Had Theodore negotiated an identical contract for his record, his payment would have been, at the bare minimum, five thousand dollars."

Suddenly Alvin stopped laughing. "...what?"

"Simple mathematics. A half of a penny is indeed an insignificant sum. But a million half-pennies is not an insignificant amount at all."

"You're telling me you're going to be paid five thousand dollars for singing your dumb bird song?"

Simon shook his head. "Only if it sells a million copies. Which it will not. But even if it sells only a tenth of that quantity, I will be owed five hundred dollars. This before any consideration is given to LP sales."

"That's why I suggested Simon for the song," I explained, trying to keep this conversation from becoming a battle of the paychecks. "He's read up on all this stuff, and I knew he could get a better deal than I did."

Alvin looked over at Simon, whom nodded. Grinning, Alvin said, "Then we're gonna be rich!"

"Perhaps," said Simon. "If we are able to stay in the good graces of Liberty Records. Let us hope that David Seville does not take too unkindly to your moonlighting activities."

"Unkindly" may have been the understatement of 1958.

Dave first heard about the song from Mr. Waronker, who angrily asked him why "your rodents were making money for other labels". "The Bird on My Head" hadn't even come out yet, and another label had already swiped the gimmick. The folks at Liberty decided to hold off on releasing the single until "Purple People Eater" had run its course. That ended up being a much longer time than anyone would've guessed, as the record hit number one, and stayed there for six weeks.

Dave left that meeting with Mr. Waronker, came by our house, and proceeded to yell at all three of us as we stood on our front porch. I'd seen Dave a bit angry before, but I'd never seen anything like this. He kept using the word "betrayal", and he announced he was terminating our business relationship. He drove us back to his place, and had us load our instruments into the back of his car. Then he drove us back to Mrs. Gorman's house, still angrily telling us that we had "blown everything". And by the time he had dumped us off on the sidewalk, I was pretty much convinced that we had.

But as Dave drove off, Simon picked up my bass drum. "Come. We will re-establish our practice area in the basement."

We all grabbed something, and began setting things up just like they had been a couple of years before. Once we had finished, I sat behind my kit. I counted off a beat, and soon the basement was filled with the strains of "Let's Do the Chipmunk Rock". And as the last guitar chord faded away, I felt better. We still had our music, and we still had each other. Alvin said he was sorry, but Simon admitted we were just as much to blame - we should have let him know what we were doing.

We sat in the basement for the next hour or two, discussing what to do next. I didn't like the fact that we had been recording songs as individuals. We sounded great as a group, musically and vocally. Why not try to sell that? Simon agreed, but pointed out that we now had two smash singles featuring our solo vocals - certainly that would be a selling point?

The three of us finally decided on a plan. We'd re-arrange our three vocal numbers - "Witch Doctor", "The Bird on My Head" and "Purple People Eater" - so we could perform them as a trio. We'd add those songs to our repertoire of instrumentals that we had been playing, and then see if we could score a gig as a live band. Getting a regular gig would presumably help push us along musically, and eventually a label might become interested in signing us. And if we could write a few originals that highlighted our vocals in the meantime, that'd be even better.

In the following weeks, we three rehearsed with a single-minded devotion. School had just let out for the summer, so we could focus all of our time and energy into our music. We had to make sure to finish practicing by 9 pm, because that's when Mrs. Gorman went to bed. After that time, we sat around in our room, trading ideas and jotting down notes.

Alvin and Simon pooled together the cash they made from their recordings, and financed a quick private recording for us. We busted through "Let's Do the Chipmunk Rock" and a revamped "Witch Doctor" in about ten minutes total, which was pretty good proof that all that rehearsing was paying off. We then had fifty 45s pressed up, and carefully printed THE CHIPMUNKS on the blank labels of each one. We also added "For booking information, contact Simon at (phone number)" on one side. (By the way, if you spot a copy of this 45 at the flea market, grab it. One sold on eBay for seven hundred dollars a few years back.) Then we hit the nearby night clubs, looking to see if we could get some bookings.

A few weeks later, we made our club debut. You'd think I'd remember the name of the place, since it was our very first live gig and all. But for some reason, none of us do. It was just a little bar, and we were set up playing off in this dark corner. We were booked to play three sets a night, Wednesday through Sunday.

Playing live in a bar was a little different from how I thought it would be. I was expecting people would become huge fans from the moment they heard us play, and that just wasn't the case. We got our share of applause, and usually there was a good deal of dancing. But hardly anybody came to talk to us between our sets. We were just there to entertain people on their night out, and that was all. It took me a bit of time to adjust my way of thinking, but pretty soon, I had learned to enjoy just being "the night's entertainment". The sets went well, and although we weren't packing the place, the crowds seemed to enjoy our music.

But our engagement hit a snag early on. Simon remembers, "I went to the venue to collect our earnings after the first week, but the owner attempted to forestall the payment. 'Let's give it one more week, and see how it goes,' was what he said. I was unsure how to respond, so I simply agreed. He presumably felt we were naïve enough to continue playing without being compensated. But I immediately resumed my efforts to secure another location for our performances. And by Wednesday, I had reached an agreement with Pete's, another establishment that was only a short distance away."

Alvin grins when he thinks back to that night. "Thanks to the cartoons, people always assume I'm the evil one of the group. But this move was totally Simon's idea. We played our first set at the old place, and maybe two songs of the second. Just up until the time it was starting to get crowded. Then he has me go on mic to announce that since the owner hadn't paid us, we would be relocating to Pete's...like, right then and there!" We tore everything down, and loaded it into a car that Pete's had sent over, while everybody just sort of stared. The guy drove us down to Pete's, we set up, and played two sets to kick off our residency there.

One of the few things I've saved from those days is a list I had scrawled onto a piece of Pete's stationery. It's not a set list - just a list of all the songs we had "mastered", or at least could fumble through in front of an audience. We'd just take our places, one of us would call out a song from that list, and away we'd go. Some songs we played at least twice a night - "Honky Tonk" and "Tequila" were both favorites. ("I hated doing 'Tequila' without the sax part," adds Alvin, "but everyone wanted to hear it back then.") A few I'd completely forgotten we had ever performed, like the theme from "Around the World in 80 Days". And there are two songs on the list that I don't recognize at all. I'm assuming both "Chitter Chatter" and "Rodent Rock" were instrumental originals that weren't good enough to keep in the sets, or even remember several decades later.

Nearly all the songs were instrumentals, but we'd close each set with one of our three vocal numbers - "Bird on My Head", "Witch Doctor", and "Purple People Eater". "Bird" didn't last long in the set, though. "Few audience members recognized it, and to be honest, I was not comfortable singing lead," Simon admits. So I suggested we swap it out for "Rock Around the Clock". My brothers agreed to that idea, and a few days later, I was playing my favorite song to close out the first set.

Playing at Pete's went much better than at the first place. We had the same schedule of playing three sets a night, but the owner was a lot nicer, and we were getting paid in a timely fashion. We also got a few nights off a week - sometimes one, sometimes more, depending on who else Pete booked to play that week. We were sort of the "house band", for when they didn't have anything else scheduled. They had a poster up on their wall advertising us. "NIGHTLY - The Chipmunks - the smallest rock-ingest band in town!".

We faced a bit of a hiccup when school started up again in September. We could hardly do three sets a night every night of the week while attending high school. Pete was nice enough to move us to weekends only, but he still had us do fill-in gigs once a month or so when he couldn't find anybody else to play. School on the mornings after those nights was insanely tough, but they were rare enough that I could muddle through.

Come the middle of October, we started discussing what our next move should be. Alvin says, "Our sets were getting pretty tight, and we had even made a few fans. We thought a good original song would make us more attractive to the labels, but we still hadn't written one." I had tried writing one called "There's No Rock and Roll on Mars", about a space alien that comes to Earth to rock out. Simon correctly pointed out that it had almost the same plot line as "Purple People Eater", so I sort of stopped working on it. Back in the fifties, it was almost expected that singers and bands weren't writing their own material. So we assumed labels would be interested in us even though we didn't have our own potential hit ready to go. And as it turned out, one label was interested. They even reached out to us first.

We just didn't expect the label to be Liberty...or the caller to be David Seville.