Key to the Highway

1940

Key to the Highway is a blues standard that was first recorded in 1940 by Charlie Segar for Vocalion ( Vocalion 5441 ). He is one of eight songs, the Segar grossed 1934-1940 for Vocalion and Decca. After moving to Chicago he took on further under its own name, but also worked for Memphis Minnie or Bumble Bee Slim.

When authors are usually given Charles " Chas " Segar and William "Big Bill" Broonzy. Broonzy explains:

" Some of the verses he [ Charlie Segar ] what singing it in the South the sametime as I sung it in the South. And Practically all of blues is just a little change from the way thatthey what solution when i was a kid ... You take one song and make fifty out of it ... just change it a little bit. "

The original was a 12 - bar blues medium tempo. Later in 1940, Jazz Gillum took ( with Big Bill Broonzy on guitar ) the song ( Bluebird B 8529 ) and changed it to an 8 - bar blues. In this version, it is still played today. 1941, Big Bill Broonzy song on ( OKeh 6242 ) and created the most famous of all the early versions of the song. This version was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2010.

Little Walter took shortly after the death of Big Bill Broonzy in 1958 his version of the song ( Checker 904) apparently as a tribute to the artists. The single was the last in a series of major hits of the harmonica player. Another important version coined by Eric Clapton on Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, this is a nine-minute jam session with incidental Duane Allman. Clapton recorded the song with Johnnie Johnson (1991) and BB King on ( Riding with the King, 2000). With two concerts of the Allman Brothers at the Beacon Theatre in New York City ( 19th and 20th March 2009), he appeared with them and played the song. The Rolling Stones took the title in 1964 in the Chess studio in Chicago, it was not published until 20 years later at the end of the album Dirty Work, in memory of Ian Stewart, pianist of the Stones, who died after the completion of the album.

Cover versions

The arrangement of Jazz Gillum was covered by many blues musicians, including by:

• The Band Music from Big Pink (2000 remastered)
• Count Basie with Joe Williams on ' Just The Blues ( 1960)
• Carey Bell & Lurrie Bell Second Nature (1991 )
• Eddie Boyd with Peter Green on Eddie Boyd and His Blues Band, Decca (1967 )
• Honeyboy Edwards Blues Blues ( 1975)
• John P. Hammond Frogs for Snakes (1981 )
• Johnnie Johnson Johnnie B. Bad (1991 )
• B.B. King with Eric Clapton Riding with the King ( 2000)
• Freddie King on Getting Ready ( 1971)
• Jo -Ann Kelly on Black Rat Swing
• Sonny Landreth Blues Attack on
• Snooky Pryor Snooky on (1989 )
• Steve Miller Band on their first album Children of the Future ( 1968)
• Memphis Slim
• Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee
• Derek Trucks (2008, 2009)
• Muddy Waters 1971 London Sessions
• Junior Wells on On Tap (1975 )
• Jeff Beck & B.B. King ( live)
• The Rolling Stones Dirty Work 1986
• Leon Russell and Edgar Winter Live DVD 1986