Big Bill Broonzy and Jazz Gillum

[tom ball <havaball@xxxxxxx>]

Larry Boy wrote:
___________________________
Lotsa chatter about Big Bill lately.  He's bonafied.  He's credited with
having penned Key to the Highway, an all time classic.  I thought I remember
some dispute between him and Jazz Gillum as to who actually wrote the tune.
Is there any evidence that Jazz may have actually written Key to the
Highway?
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Depends on which sources one cares to believe. <g>  The dispute no 
doubt stems from the fact that the song was originally recorded by 
Gillum on May 9, 1940 (with Broonzy accompanying him on guitar,) then 
recorded again by Broonzy on May 2, 1941 (with Gillum accompanying on 
harp.)

On the Broonzy recording it lists W. Broonzy & C. Segar as writers. 
On the Gillum version is says "J. Gilham (sic) Duchess Music Corp." 
But then I've also seen recordings of it credited to Little Walter, 
Brownie McGhee and Lightnin' Hopkins.

Gillum always claimed to have written the piece, and contended that 
he was ripped off, but who knows?

Incidentally in the book "Me And Big Joe," Mike Bloomfield wrote 
about visiting Gillum in Chicago in the early '60s:

"And there was Jazz Gillum, who was just about the craziest man I'd 
ever met.  Joe <i.e. Big Joe Williams> took me to see him on a very 
uncomfortable summer day, with both the temperature and the humidity 
up in the nineties -- the kind of day when doing nothing makes you 
sweat; when dirt forms up under your fingernails for no reason at 
all.  We drove out to the West Side and stopped in front of a tiny 
frame house, just a shanty, really.  When we walked into the place I 
thought I'd hit Hell City -- as hot as it was outside, it was 
insufferably worse within.  All the windows were shut down tight. 
Clad in a huge brown overcoat and sweating profusely, Gillum stood 
beside a woodstove, stoking a raging fire.  He was extremely 
paranoid.  He'd written the very successful Key To The Highway and 
had never gotten the publishing money for it, and was afraid I'd come 
to steal his other tunes.  We didn't stay long enough to change his 
mind."

Tom Ball
Santa Barbarian