Ross Bagdasarian, Sr. aka David Seville
Since it is close to Christmas time, we have pulled out our Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas CDs. They are favorites of the kids and I used to listen to the same ones (of course, on vinyl) back in the day. This got me to thinking, whatever happened to David Seville?
David Seville’s real name was Rostom Sipan Bagdasarian. He was born on January 27, 1919 and was of Armenian descent. Bagdasarian appeared on Broadway in The Time of Your Life and later wrote a song with his cousin William Saroyan for Rosemary Clooney.
In 1956, down to his last $200, Bagdasarian spent $190 on a tape recorder that allowed him to change the speed of the recording. Under the name David Seville, he recorded ‘Witch Doctor.’ This led him to record ‘The Chipmunk Song’ with The Chipmunks. He won two Grammy awards with this recording.
Bagdasarian took bit parts in movies and then provided the voice of David Seville in the short-lived animated series The Alvin Show in 1961. On January 16, 1972, Bagasarian died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 53. In 1980, his son, Ross Bagdasarian, Jr. decided to revive the Chipmunks and took on the voice of David Seville, Alvin and Simon. His wife, Janice Karman, did the voices for Theodore and the Chipettes.
Here is the original ‘Witch Doctor’ recording:
[...] Now that I have told you all about David Seville, here is a little about Alvin and the Chipmunks. The Chipmunks were the creation of Ross Bagdasarian, Sr. in 1958. Bagdasarian went by the stage name of David Seville. He created three Chipmunks and named them after the executives of Liberty Records (the original record label). They were: Alvin Bennett (the president), Simon Waronker (the founder and owner), and Theodore Keep (the chief engineer). [...]
i just wish the old chipmunks could come back because children love those cartoony things their just so funny and i miss ross bardasarian
I can still sing all the words to the song Please Christmas don’t be late. I owned three of their albums as a kid. I did not realize until now that the name David Seville was an assumed name. It doesn”t matter. I’m 56 and still love the songs . he made so many happy. My mother probably still has my copies of these albums badly scratched but what ever. Weird just now a commercial for the chipmunks new movie just popped up on TV. bizarre. I’m a chipmunks fan forever.