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Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Key To the Highway - Tedeschi Trucks Band


I'm sure that everyone knows now that Derek and Susan got married a while back. It could turn into a decent thing for the music industry. I personally prefer Derek's work away from his personal band and particularly like his work with the Allmans as well as with Buddy Guy (with Tedeschi). Here's Derek's band with Susan sitting in.

"Key to the Highway" is usually credited to Charles "Chas" Segar and William "Big Bill" Broonzy. As Broonzy explains: "Some of the verses he [Charlie Segar] was singing it in the South the same time as I sung it in the South. And practically all of blues is just a little change from the way that they was sung when I was a kid ... You take one song and make fifty out of it ... just change it a little bit."

Charlie Segar's original "Key to the Highway" was done in the form of a mid-tempo twelve-bar blues. When Jazz Gillum recorded it later that year (featuring Big Bill Broonzy on guitar), he changed the melody and the arrangement to an eight-bar blues, as it is now usually known (May 9, 1940 Bluebird B 8529). A year later, Broonzy recorded "Key to the Highway" utilizing Gillum's arrangement and melody, creating the best known of the early versions of the song (May 2, 1941 OKeh 6242). In 2010, Broonzy's version of "Key to the Highway" was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame "Classics of Blues Recordings" category.

My personal introduction was through Derek and the Dominos and I doubt anyone will ever top it with Duane on slide...but Derek is a fine fine player!
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