A recent (and very cool) post over at Record Robot got me to thinking about Ross Bagdasarian (AKA David Seville, the Chipmunk impresario), and better yet, it spurred me to finally dig through a big stack of ancient cassette tapes to locate this little gem.
Ross Bagdasarian grew up in Fresno, California. His heritage was Armenian, and he was first cousin to author/playwright William Saroyan, who was eleven years his senior.
Bagdasarian and Saroyan colaborated in writing the song 'Come On-a My House' while traveling together in the summer of 1939.
The song was first used in 1950, incorporated into Saroyan's off-Broadway play, 'The Son'.
The first recordings of it were released in 1951, on the Federal record label by vocalist
Kay Armen
(Mrs. Bagdasarian), as well as this version released on the Coral label, featuring vocals by Ross, accompanied by Saroyan supplying the narration.
It was the Rosemary Clooney version that became a HUGE hit, released that same year on the Columbia label (despite her reluctance to record it).
It was somewhere around this time that Ross Bagdasarian concluded that he *was* in fact in the music business, and so changed his name to David Seville. (He'd been stationed in the Seville region of Spain during WWII)
During the next few years he continued to record (with moderate commercial success), issuing singles on the Liberty label under the name 'Alfi & Harry', and then more singles and an LP as David Seville.
He had a few film roles during that time as well, including his appearance in Afred Hitchcock's 'Rear Window'.
It was 1958 when everything changed. He played around with recording his voice sped up, and released his novelty song 'The Witch Doctor', which was ridiculously successful. He took the process a step further in creating The Chipmunks, and a dynasty was born.
Listen to: Ross Bagdasarian, with narration by William Saroyan - Come On-A My House (click for audio)
Posts
