Help: Key to the Highway

Subject: Key to the Highway
From: Jim Krause
Date: 30 Mar 00 - 12:52 PM

Some of you who are a little more familiar with the blues idiom more than I, may be able to answer this question.
In Key to the Highway the first verse goes
I've got the key to the highway
Yes, I'm billed out and bound to go
I'm gonna leave here runnin', because
Walkin' is much too slow

What does the expression billed out mean? I have a Muddy Waters recording of this song that I've always liked. I thought I might like to add this tune to my repertoire.

Subject: RE: Help: Key to the Highway
From: Amos
Date: 30 Mar 00 - 01:05 PM

I expect it would refer to a shipment being made ready to ship by preparing a bill of lading, a freight document indicating contents. The notion implies that Broonzy (or Waters) had finished his preparations for leaving. But this is merely an eddicated guess :>)

A

Subject: RE: Help: Key to the Highway
From: Mooh
Date: 30 Mar 00 - 01:26 PM

I'm not familiar with that version, I've been using the Sing Out Vol.40 #3 version that's credited to Brownie McGhee. Where's/who's yours from?

Subject: RE: Help: Key to the Highway
From: Mooh
Date: 30 Mar 00 - 01:27 PM

Oops, Muddy Waters, right. What recording? Thanks. Mooh.

Subject: RE: Help: Key to the Highway
From: Jon W.
Date: 30 Mar 00 - 01:32 PM

"Billed out" would refer to having one's ticket for riding (in this case) a bus. I've got an old tape of the Muddy Waters version but I taped it of the radio and don't have album information on it. I think it might have been recorded by Big Bill Broonzy before Muddy or Brownie.

Subject: RE: Help: Key to the Highway
From: Art Thieme
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 01:13 AM

Yes, Big Bill Broonzy did it all around Chicago in the 1940s. May have recorded it before that even. (His death certificate was framed and on the wall at the Old Town School Of Folk Music in Chicago for the longest time. Bill's guitar was there too. 'Twas a treat to play it.)

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Help: Key to the Highway
From: Stewie
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 02:05 AM

Bill 'Jazz' Gillum recorded it in May 1940 with Big Bill Broonzy accompanying him on guitar. It was a hit record for him (in so far blues could be 'hits').

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Help: Key to the Highway
From: Stewie
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 02:23 AM

I looked up when Broonzy first recorded it. He recorded it a year later - in May 1941 - with Jazz Gillum accompanying him on harmonica. At the time, he was still recording as Big Bill. He didn't use his full name on recordings until after 1943.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Help: Key to the Highway
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 10:35 AM

Little Walter does a great version of this song. The liner notes list Big Bill Broonzy as the writer.

Subject: RE: Help: Key to the Highway
From: Jim Krause
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 12:10 PM

I first heard the Muddy Waters version on the Chess LP The Muddy Waters London Sessions. The lyrics as typed into my first post I got from the Database. I couldn't quite get all of Muddy's words.

Subject: RE: Help: Key to the Highway
From: Stewie
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 07:48 PM

Steve, if it's the same set - 'Essential Little Walter' - although Broonzy is mentioned in the notes, the attribution in the track discography is to 'Walter Jacobs, Duchess Music Corp'! It would be interesting to know who actually wrote it - I believe Gillum's was the first recording. Gillum and Broonzy had a close relationship, with Broonzy appearing on most of Gillum's recordings.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Help: Key to the Highway
From: Stewie
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 09:24 PM

Harry's blues lyrics site has 3 sets of lyrics - from Big Bill's 1941 recording, from his 1957 recording and from a 1950s Little Walter recording. In all cases the attribution given is 'Big Bill Broonzy/Charles Segar'. The accuracy of that is anybody's guess.

Subject: RE: Help: Key to the Highway
From: Lonesome Dave
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 09:29 PM

According to the liner notes in Trouble In Mind, Charlie Segar, a Chicago piano player, wrote the words and Big Bill the music. Trouble In Mind is a recent reissue from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings of recordings Broonzy made shortly before his death. There is a lot of really good stuff here and and I highly recommend this disc. In recent years Broonzy hasn't gotten the attention he deserves, hopefully this CD will rectify the situation.

Subject: RE: Help: Key to the Highway
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 10:08 PM

I LOVE the music of Bill Broonzy! From a technical standpoint, he may have been the most digitaly dexterious blues player of them all. If you listen closely to his very earliest recordings you can hear some subtle little guitar figures (while he's singing) that practically defy copying. His early use of a flat picking on songs like "John Henry" and "How you want it done" are stupendous. There certainly was never another recorded bluesman who could fingerpick AND flat pick with such skill.

Rick

Subject: RE: Help: Key to the Highway
From: DonMeixner
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 11:05 PM

I have a video of Sonny Terry and Brownie Magee doing "Key". From Pete Seegars TV show "Rainbow Quest" What fine stuff it is.

Don