Cross Road Blues

"Cross Road Blues"
Song

"Cross Road Blues" is one of Delta Blues singer Robert Johnson's most famous songs. The lyrics plainly have the narrator attempting to hitch a ride from an intersection as darkness falls. But in close association with the mythic legend of Johnson's short life and death, it has come to represent the tale of a blues man going to a metaphorical crossroads to meet the devil to sell his soul in exchange for becoming a famous blues player.

Because of the historical significance of "Cross Road Blues", it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998.

Legend and Interpretation

While the legend of the Johnson selling his soul to the Devil is fascinating and evocative, the song itself plainly describes the very real, harrowing situation feared by Johnson and other African Americans in the Deep South in the early 20th century. Historian Leon Litwack has suggested that the song refers to the common fear felt by blacks who were discovered out alone after dark. As late as 1930s in parts of the South, the well-known expression, "Nigger, don't let the sun go down on you here," was, according to Litwack, "understood and vigorously enforced." In an era when lynchings were still common, Johnson was likely singing about the desperation of finding his way home from an unfamiliar place as quickly as possible because, as the song says, "the sun goin' down, boy/ dark gon' catch me here." This interpretation also makes sense of the closing line "You can run/ tell my friend poor Willie Brown/ that I'm standing at the crossroads" as Johnson's appeal for help from a real-life fellow musician."

The legend of Johnson selling his soul to learn to play guitar is said to have taken place in Rosedale, Mississippi, at the intersection of Highway 8 and Highway 1 (33°50′44″N 91°1′39″W). Another, less common, belief is that the crossroad is at the intersection of Highway 49 and Highway 61 in Clarksdale, Mississippi.[1]

Covers

Cream

"Cross Road Blues"
Song
B-side	"Passing the Time"

In 1968, Cream recorded a live version of the song at the Winterland Ballroom, for inclusion on their double album Wheels of Fire. Arranged by guitarist Eric Clapton, the Cream version had a faster tempo than the original, and included two lines borrowed from Johnson's "Traveling Riverside Blues."

Many believe the song is about the original songwriter, Robert Johnson, going to the crossroads to sell his soul to the devil in exchange for being able to play the blues and gain fame. Some historians believe the song is actually about an African-American worried about being lynched for being out after dark in an unfamiliar place of the Deep South in the early 20th century. (See Chapter Eight of Leon F. Litwack, Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow (New York: Vintage Books, 1998), especially pages 410 and 411.)

Unlike Cream's usual arrangement with bassist Jack Bruce singing, guitarist Eric Clapton took the vocals on this recording. Clapton's explosive guitar solos cemented his reputation as a guitar legend; his work from the track was named by one critic the greatest live rock solo ever. Bruce's fluid bass playing, blurring the line between rhythm and melody, has been similarly honored as the second-best live bass performance.

It was placed at #409 on the 2004 List of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Other cover versions

Other artists who have covered the song range from Elmore James and Cowboy Junkies to Lynyrd Skynyrd (live) and Rush.

See also

• Traveling Riverside Blues

External links

• "Cross Road Blues" lyrics