David's Tip of the Day: Key to the Highway - Blues Standards

This song is on the School of the Blues House Band Standards List simply because of its form. There is no standard 8 bar blues chord progression, unlike the 12 bar blues which is expected to be a specific way (with small variations every now and again). In my experience "Key to the Highway" provides the most common version of an 8 bar blues used. If you use this as your reference point, when doing a different 8 bar blues you can say to yourself, "It's like Key to the Highway, but it changes like this..."

The chord progression is...

I V IV IV
I V I V

Listen to Little Walter's version. After the four-bar intro (which is V IV I V... the last four bars of a 12 bar blues progression interestingly enough) the form begins.