During the summer of 1963, I caught a song on the radio that I instantly fell in love with it. I could tell right away that it was by Del Shannon - his high vocals were pretty distinctive. I went to the record store to buy it the next day, and brought it in for my brothers to listen to. They both dug it, too, so we quickly came up with an arrangement and added it to our set. "I even got to play harmonica for the first time in years," says Alvin. The song wasn't much of a hit, though, so we ended up dropping "From Me to You" from the set after a month or two.
Fast-forward to the opening days of 1964, when I first heard "I Want to Hold Your Hand". I know I should say that I was a huge Beatles fan from the very first note I heard. Truthfully, though, I thought "Hand" seemed a bit hokey. I mean, they weren't just saying they wanted to hold this girl's hand. They were politely asking for her permission. It seemed almost like a throwback to songs like "A Guy Is a Guy" by Doris Day, where lovers sat on porches and sipped lemonade and "pitched woo". I didn't hate it - the music was as catchy as the measles, for one thing. I just wasn't much of a fan of the lyrics.
Alvin really liked it, though, so he bought the 45. "'Hand' was great, but then I flipped it over," says Alvin. "And the song on the b-side was a monster." Alvin excitedly brought it to our next rehearsal, and I had to admit "I Saw Her Standing There" was a great rock and roll number. Simon agreed, and we worked out an arrangement, with some rather scarifyingly high "ooo"s before the title phrase. By the time we had whipped that tune into shape, it had accomplished what "Hand" had failed to do - it had turned me into a hardcore Beatles fan.
I'm pretty sure it was later that same week that I noticed the label of my Del Shannon "From Me to You" 45 listed the songwriters as "McCartney Lennon". I called Alvin and Simon to tell them this bit of trivia, and we decided to add it the song back in to our set. It wasn't until many years later that I realized that, for a select few people in southern California, their very first exposure to Beatles music was hearing the Chipmunks (in the guise of the Little Rocks) pounding their way through "From Me to You".
It's hard to explain all of the changes that came around that time, if you weren't around for it. A few changes were directly caused by the Beatles, others were more like side effects, and still other changes were probably just happening at the same time. A lot of aspects of my life began changing, too. And not all of those changes were welcome.
For example, sometime in the summer of 1964, Joan lost her engagement at the Seven Palms. The club decided to cut back to having live entertainment on the weekends only. Everyone in the band pitched in looking for another engagement, but the demand for supper club entertainment like Joan provided seemed to have dried up. She finally found a place, but they only wanted to book her for a Friday-and-Saturday engagement, which I couldn't do. I encouraged her to accept the gig, and helped the band find a new drummer. I never played with Joan again, although we agreed to stay in touch. I foolishly asked her out at some point, but she was wise enough to turn me down. And despite the blow to my ego, we remained friends.
The Little Rocks had started feeling the influence of Beatlemania, as well. "Our band started to look a bit old-fashioned," admits Alvin. "Which is kind of ridiculous. I mean, we were in our early twenties, and playing current music. But instrumental combos started to look a bit passé." We would still find new instrumentals to play - I remember adding "Penetration" to our set the same week we started playing "Can't Buy Me Love". But the audiences were starting to respond more to the vocal numbers than the instrumentals. That was a bit of a problem for us. We felt that playing instrumentals put the emphasis on our musicianship, and on the songs themselves. It's not that some people didn't view The Little Rocks as a novelty to begin with (I'm sure they did) but I think we managed to win a lot of folks over with our playing. That was tougher to do with our high-pitched voices. When we stuck with instrumentals, people would hopefully think "wow, these little guys can really play." But as we did more vocals, I'm sure it was more like "aw, isn't that cute - three rodents singing the Beatles."
All through the year, the Beatles phenomenon kept growing, and it eventually hit a point that none of us ever thought it could. David Seville told us he wanted us to record a couple of Beatles songs - "Can't Buy Me Love" and "All My Loving". This was weird for a couple of reasons. First off, we had never recorded covers of contemporary hits. The closest we had come was recording "Jingle Bell Rock" for one of our Christmas albums. And secondly, the Beatles were unabashedly a rock-and-roll band, and The Chipmunks had never recorded anything that you could really classify as rock and roll. And it was that second bit that worried Simon.
"Liberty Records was not unfamiliar with the rock and roll idiom," Simon points out. "Both Bobby Vee and the Marketts recorded for the label, for example, and both acts were rock-based. But for these Beatles songs, we would still be working under the auspices of Mr. Seville, whose musical tastes appeared to have been arrested in the early fifties." But Simon not only foresaw the potential problem - he went ahead and prepared a potential solution. He told us to bring all our gear to the recording session. "I feel it may come in handy" was all he told us. Alvin and I knew better than to second-guess Simon, so when I drove up to Liberty that Sunday morning, all of our instruments were piled in the back of my truck.
We met Dave and Mr. Waronker in the control room. As we watched the string and horn players get their instruments in place, Simon turned to Dave and made an unusual request. He asked to hear the arrangement of "Can't Buy Me Love" first, with Dave taking the lead vocal. Dave seemed confused by the request, but shrugged. He walked into the studio proper, and a few minutes or later, the music began. And from the first note, both Alvin and I immediately began frowning along with Simon.
"God, it was horrible," remembers Alvin. "Well, maybe it was all right for a Henry Mancini album or something. You know, one of those easy-listening albums with a random attractive girl on the front. But as a cover of a Beatles song, it was painful. Dave was obviously trying to 'pretty it up'. But that was the opposite of everything that people liked about the Beatles in the first place."
As Dave finished the song, Simon wheeled around. "Mr. Waronker, our instruments are right outside. Would you allow us to attempt to provide the musical backing?" Mr. Waronker looked skeptical, and Simon pressed harder. "Please, Mr. Waronker. Allow us to do a single run-through, after which you can decide which rendition you feel was superior."
Mr. Waronker sighed. "I suppose. No harm in giving it a listen, right?"
Simon grinned. "Thank you, Mr. Waronker. I have cause to believe you will not regret this decision." We ran out the door towards the parking lot, just as Dave walked back into the control room, looking very confused. But as we began loading our equipment in, we saw Dave standing in the corner, arms crossed, scowling at us. Well, I couldn't blame him, really. We had basically just suggested that we didn't like his arrangement, and that we thought we could do the song better.
A few minutes later, my drums were set up, and I was adjusting a microphone near my head so I could provide backing vocals. Once that was done, I looked through the glass at Mr. Waronker, who gave me a thumbs up. I glanced over at Alvin and Simon, who both nodded back at me. Alvin gave us the key, since the song starts right off with the vocals. I then tapped out the tempo, and all three of us hit our mark.
"Can't buy me lo-ove, lo-ove, can't buy me lo-ove..." Our arrangement had all three of us singing in harmony through the whole song, so I had to focus both on the drums and my vocals for the full two minutes or so. Alvin pulled back from the guitar melody to ape the George Harrison solo, before rejoining the melody on the next chorus.
"Can't buy me lo-o-ove..." The last note reverberated through the studio...and a few musicians behind us started applauding. I stood up, turned to them and bowed in my best Ringo imitation.
Mr. Waronker walked into the studio proper, stared at us for a few seconds, then turned to the musicians behind us. "It would appear your services will not be needed today. Thank you." The musicians started packing their things, and I turned to look back at them. I was thinking that they'd be mad at us. After all, for all I knew, we had just cost them a day's pay. But they all seemed pretty happy for us. Many of them had played on our sessions since the beginning, and I guess they were rather pleased to see us play this music for ourselves.
Once the musicians had left, the engineer came in to reposition some microphones, and Mr. Waronker discussed our arrangement. He suggested that Alvin stick with the rhythm guitar part during the solo section, and we could overdub the solo afterwards. Simon then asked Alvin if he could take the solo instead, and Alvin somewhat reluctantly agreed. "I did really want to cut loose on the solo," Alvin admits, "but Simon was the reason we got to play on the record in the first place, so I decided to let him take it." How does Alvin feel about Simon's solo now? Alvin thinks for a second before answering. "His solo wasn't as flashy as mine was, but his playing style was different. That probably made the record sound better overall."
Once Simon finished the solo overdub, he strapped his bass back on, and we started working on "All My Loving". It wasn't a song we had played before, so we ran through it a few times to make sure we knew the parts. As we finished our last run-through, Dave entered the studio. He wasn't scowling anymore - in fact, he looked kind of embarrassed.
"Uh, fellows, can I do a bit of an intro on this one?" he asked, sounding rather humbled.
We all looked at each other, and I gave a slight nod to Simon. Simon forced a little smile, and said, "Of course, Mr. Seville."
"Great." He had Mr. Waronker join him next to another microphone, and asked us to just go "yeah yeah!" a couple of times when he pointed at us. We nodded, then got into position to record. Dave and Mr. Waronker started clapping a simple beat, then Dave said, in his typical cheery recording voice, "All right, you chipmunks, is your hair on straight?" He pointed at us.
None of us said a word. "...What?" one of us finally asked.
Dave and Mr. Waronker stopped clapping. "Um, is your hair on straight? You know, like a Beatles wig?"
Alvin sighed loudly and rolled his eyes. Mr. Waronker said, "Come on, fellows, give it a go, OK?"
Simon said, "Very well. You have compromised for our sake, so we shall endeavor to do likewise." He turned to Alvin and me and said, "Keep it happy."
Once more, Dave and Mr. Waronker clapped out the beat, and Dave asked his inane question. We "yeah yeah"ed on cue, Dave finished his intro, and we launched into the song. The take was solid if not great. The pace was a bit slow, and you could hear that we were still trying to nail the song. But Mr. Waronker loved it.
"That was really splendid, fellows. I'm glad you had the idea to bring your instruments in."
Alvin smirked. "Told ya we could play."
I was worried that Alvin's comment would spark some unwelcome words from Dave. I immediately said the first thing that came to mind, hoping to change the subject. "Maybe we should have done 'From Me to You', instead."
My interjection apparently worked, because Mr. Waronker turned to me and said, "Why do you say that?"
I shrugged. "We already know that one. We've been playing it since last year."
"Can you boys play it for me?" he asked.
"Sure, I guess. Alvin, you got your harmonica?"
Alvin set up his rack, I tapped out the rhythm, and we all came in on the four count. "Da da da, da da din din da..." We made our way through the song, closing it out with an extended "daaa". Mr. Waronker stared at us each in turn.
"How many Beatles songs do you know?"
"Besides those two?" Alvin began ticking them off on his fingers. "'I Saw Her Standing There', 'She Loves You', 'Please Please Me'. And 'Twist and Shout', if that one counts."
Simon added, "We have also attempted 'PS I Love You', but we were less than satisfied with the result."
Mr. Waronker rubbed his hands together. "Perfect. Let's get started. 'From Me to You' first." He pointed to Dave. "Get over to the store and buy us some Beatles records."
Dave looked confused. "What for?"
"So these fellows can learn enough to round out an album of Beatles covers."
"A whole album?" Dave and us three must have said it at the same time.
"Why not? You guys are more than halfway there just with the ones you already know. Let's see if we can crank this thing out."
We decided, heck, we were enjoying it so far. We pounded out the other four we knew in a couple takes each, with Alvin or Simon adding additional guitar afterwards when we felt it was needed. Then we sort of muddled our way through "PS I Love You". It wasn't great, but it at least sounded better than it had the last time we rehearsed it.
By that point, Dave had returned with some records, and we picked out a few more to do. We stuck with the ones that had already been big hits - "I Want to Hold Your Hand", "Love Me Do", "Do You Want to Know a Secret". During the previous year or two, we had gotten plenty of practice learning songs by listening to the records, so it didn't take much more than half an hour each to get them down on tape.
The final one we tried was "A Hard Day's Night", and that one was a chore. We spent about twenty minutes just trying to get the opening chord to sound right. No matter what we tried, it just didn't sound like the one on the record. We finally gave up, and decided to skip that chord and start with the vocals.
Those last four songs remain my least favorites on the album. The tempos are a bit draggy, and we're a bit hesitant on the vocals, too. We should have gone home and practiced those songs for a while, played them in our sets that next weekend, and then come back to record them once we had them down pat. "I would recommended such a course of action, had I believed the recommendation would have had any effect," states Simon, with more than a little cynicism. "Quality control was rarely a top concern for Chipmunks records. They often wanted the record finished today and in the racks tomorrow, even if that meant an inferior product to sell."
The cover art for the album was typically silly. Our cartoon likenesses are wearing Beatles wigs and playing our instruments...or something that kind of looks like our instruments. Simon's bass looks almost like a sitar, and Alvin appears to have attached his harmonica to the body of his guitar. Most annoyingly, Dave is there with us, playing rhythm guitar and smiling. Dave barely shows up on this album at all - in fact, the entire sound of the album ran counter to his basic idea for it.
With all the solid rock and roll we recorded for the album, I really have no idea why Liberty chose to put out "All My Loving" as the single, complete with Dave's stupid intro. They even put one of the "on the fly" songs as a b-side - "Do You Want to Know a Secret". A few countries in Europe chose to put "Please Please Me" as the b-side instead. Whoever it was who chose that one over "Secret", Theodore Chipmunk salutes you half a century after the fact.
All that being said, this is by far my favorite Chipmunks album from the 1960s. Yeah, it's just us covering Beatles songs, but that's the true wonder of it. Instead of us laying our vocals on top of some children's songs that other people performed, it is in fact the three of us playing Beatles songs. If you want to know what we sounded like at our gigs at PJ's, this album gives you a pretty decent idea. And that's something I can't say about any of our other albums at that time.
The single "All My Loving" was a stiff, but the album was a big hit. It reached number sixteen, making it our third-highest charting album ever. As an added bonus, since we performed the music, we received a larger payday than normal.
With a top twenty album featuring us singing and playing rock and roll, I thought the future looked great for The Chipmunks. I pictured our next album being mostly rock and roll covers, but perhaps we could write a few originals, as well. And now that the folks at Liberty had proof that we could perform well on our instruments, maybe we could get out there and play some live shows as the Chipmunks, too!
It won't surprise you to find out that my prediction was off. But it's a bit staggering how far off it was.