Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Interesting Record #1

In browsing through some of the old records I have sitting around in boxes, I have found some of interest for one reason or another. Let's start off with this one.

This particular record, Alvin's Harmonica, reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1959. It was the second record issued under the artist name of David Seville and The Chipmunks. Of course David, along with Alvin, Theodore, and Simon, were all the voice of Ross Bagdasarian. The first with this artist credit was The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late).

Bagdasarian played around with speeding up tape recordings to build the tracks for each chipmunk, and hit it big with the resulting novelty records. He also had a huge #1 hit in 1958 without the Chipmunk credit, singing as David Seville. That record, Witch Doctor, was his first experiment with speeded up voices on a commercial recording.

This record also has something I like. That is silver ink printed on a dark colored label. Something about that combination is just pleasing to me.

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