Little known fact: Earl King's most widely-known (and most lucrative) tune, featuring the refrain "let the good times roll," is actually entitled "Come On." There are of course other tunes whose lyrics encorporate the same phrase, both in English and in French ("Laissez les Bon Temps Roulez"). Shirley & Lee recorded one of them in New Orleans during the 50s, using the obvious title, which explains why Earl would know that the first-choice title for his composition was already spoken for.

Earl was unique among his contemporaries in that he was always sure to control his intellectual property, i.e., publishing rights to all his songs. It's said that he never showed up at a session with a new tune until he had first secured the rights to his work.

Early in his career, Earl went on the road "impersonating" his friend and mentor Guitar Slim; that type of substitution was common back in the days before music videos, and before most black artists even had their pictures appear on record sleeves. Since then he has always performed Slim's classic "Things That I Used to Do" as part of his set, along with his own tunes.

Also, the Professor Longhair recording of Earl's composition "Big Chief," a big favorite in New Orleans but little-known elsewhere, actually features Earl on vocals and whistling. Earl's vocal was originally intended as a demo from which Fess was supposed to learn the words and then sing on the record, but for whatever reason, that never happened. Fess' piano playing is wonderful, prominently featured in the mix, and critical to the recording's success, but it really should have been sold as an Earl King record, since Earl wrote the music and lyrics, played the guitar part, sang lead, and contributed another "instrumental" part with a great chorus or two of whistling.