Earl 'Fatha'Hines discusses his time at the Grand Terrace.

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Earl 'Fatha'Hines discusses being a band leader.

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Earl 'Fatha'Hines discusses songwriting.

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Q: “All the time you were leading the band, you were giving more solo space to everybody else. You were amazingly modest…”

A: “I was a very fortunate in having a person come by to give me an opportunity. You see, and I felt that I should pass it on because if anybody had enough, Bud Johnson was an unheralded tenor saxophonist, so I brought Neal. They used to pass him up that and I said, "Bud, I want you to join my band." And I used to tell people that here's a man that’s not thought of. I said he's got a reputation among us and we all love the guy, you know. And so he just kept banging away and he got a little discouraged there for a while, and then we told him, "You just keep banging with it. It's all right. Don't worry. I'll present you." And then he turned out to be a heck of an arranger, so he was ... and that's really an asset to my band, Bud Johnson was.”