Peanuts Hucko on becoming a musician.

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Peanuts Hucko discusses his time in the military and its affect on his musical ability.

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Peanuts Hucko discusses his musical style.

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Q: “Somehow or other, you got drawn into the ‘traditionalist’ camp when in fact, to me you’re a sort of swing player. Does it date back to the Eddie Condon things that you did?”

A: “Well, actually, as I say, the first date I did was with Eddie and I went with Ray, even though I had an apartment in New York. I was on the road with Ray for about a year and then I decided to just get off the road and stay in New York, and I was just doing all the substitutes here and you know, like everybody else does trying to get in, you know, in the business and … And I got a call one night from Eddie Condon. It was like a Friday night, and Eddie called and he said, "Are you going to be busy next week, you know?" And I said, "No, I wasn't." And he said, "Well," he said, "Peewee," Peewee Russell was working there. He said, "Peewee has got an offer to go to Chicago." And he says, "It's a very good offer." And he said, "He's got to start on Monday. He's got to leave us, you know, he's got to finish up Saturday night and he got to leave us." And he says, "You know, I just can't hold the guy back if he can better himself, you know." He says, "Maybe you should come in until we can find somebody, you know." I said, "Sure, I'd be glad to." So next Monday, I go in, but I think the funny thing about it was, he didn't go to Chicago at all, Peewee didn't. He went to work at Mick’s, but he was afraid to work out a notice and afraid to tell him that he was going to work at Mick’s because Mick’s was the competition. So anyways, so I went in to fill in and I stayed there for 3-1/2 years. And finally, finally I quit and Eddie couldn't understand it because, you know, we were having a ball. Everything was great. We did all the television shows and recording and everything and ... but we used to work from 9:30 at night until 4 in the morning.”