Playing with Patrick Kerssen. If you’re interested in hearing Patrick play in person, he is a fixture of the music scene in this part of the world. Go see him play- you’ll be in for a delightful treat!
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“Key to the Highway”

is a blues standard that has been performed and recorded by several blues and other artists. Blues pianist Charlie Segar first recorded the song in 1940. Jazz Gillum and Big Bill Broonzy followed with recordings in 1940 and 1941, using an arrangement that has become the standard.

When Little Walter updated the song in 1958 in an electric Chicago blues style, it became a success on the R&B record chart. A variety of artists have since interpreted the song, including Eric Clapton, who recorded several versions.

“Key to the Highway” is usually credited to Charles “Chas” Segar and William “Big Bill” Broonzy. Broonzy explained the song’s development:

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.

Segar’s lyrics are nearly the same as those recorded by Broonzy and Jazz Gillum. The verses use the theme of the itinerant bluesman leaving to travel the highways after breaking up with his lover:

I got the key to the highway, billed out and bound to go
I’m gonna leave here runnin’, because walkin’ is much too slow …
Give me one more kiss mama, just before I go
‘Cause when I’m leavin’ here, I won’t be back no more

“As long as we live, there is never enough singing.” – Martin Luther