Cross road blues
| Cross road blues | |
|---|---|
| Robert Johnson | |
| publication | 1937 |
| length | 2 min 39 sec |
| Genre (s) | Blues delta blues |
| Author (s) | Robert Johnson |
| Award (s) | Grammy Hall of Fame (1998), National Recording Preservation Board of the Library of Congress (2003), Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: 500 songs that shaped Rock and Roll, Blues Hall of Fame (1986) |
Cross Road Blues (cover versions also called Crossroads ) is a song by the US American Delta Blues singer Robert Johnson , which was recorded on November 27, 1936 in San Antonio , Texas . It was published on Vocalion in 1937 (catalog number 3519). From Cross Road Blues was next to the first published version, as with many other of his songs, also recorded an alternate recording. This 10 seconds shorter version was selected by Frank Driggs in 1961 and published on the album King of the Delta Blues Singers .
history
The Cross Road Blues dates back to 1936. The song was released the following year by Vocalion Records and ARC (Vocalion 03519; ARC 7 - 05 - 81). As with many of the songs, there are two recordings, the first released version is Take 1. After the recording was out of print for a long time , the original version was not released until 1990 on Complete Recordings . Because of its historical significance, the Cross Road Blues was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998. In the Robert Johnson version, the vocals are only accompanied by the guitar . In 1986 the Cross Road Blues was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.
text
The text is divided into five stanzas. In the first, the first-person narrator begs God to have mercy on Bob (the first-person narrator?). In the second, he tries in vain to find someone who can take him back with him. In the third verse the sun goes down, the first-person narrator says that Bob is also doing badly with it. In the fourth verse, the first-person narrator asks his friend Willie Brown to say that he has the "crossroad blues". In the last verse, the first-person narrator complains that he is stranded in his misery alone without a "sweet woman".
In the second version, verses four and five were swapped.
Text reference
The text can be related to a legend about a blues musician who sells his soul to the devil at an intersection in the Mississippi Delta in order to learn the blues from him. According to another legend, Robert Johnson, like his friend Willie Brown, sung in the song, made this deal with the devil.
The theme and story of the song was used in the 1986 feature film Crossroads - Pact with the Devil and in the mystery series Supernatural (Season 2, Episode 8 "Crossroad Blues"). Johnson also dealt with the subject of the “ Devil's Pact ” in the songs Hellhound on My Trail and Me & the Devil Blues , which he recorded at a further recording session in 1937.
Cover versions (selection)
Eric Clapton rearranged the riff of the song for recording with the band Cream . In a 2013 interview, Clapton said he was very proud of the reef at the time. Clapton covered the song on Eric Clapton's Rainbow Concert from 1973, Backtrackin ' from 1984, The Cream of Eric Clapton from 1987, Crossroads from 1988, Story from 1990, The Cream of Clapton from 1995, Crossroads 2: Live in the Seventies from 1996, Blues from 1999 and Complete Clapton from 2007.
Other cover versions were created by:
|
|
|
literature
- Peter Guralnick : Robert Johnson Crossroads , Hannibal Verlagsgruppe KOCH, 1995, ISBN 3854451059
Individual evidence
- ^ The Complete Recordings Booklet
- ↑ a b Jim O'Neal: Classic of Blues Recording - Singles or Album Tracks . In: Blues Hall of Fame - 1986 Inductees . The Blues Foundation . 1986. Retrieved July 12, 2013.
- ↑ grammy.org: Past Recipients
- ↑ Cross Road Blues (take 1)
- ↑ xroads.virginia.edu: Cross Road Blues (take 2) , with interpretative notes (English)
- ↑ Robert Johnson, mythmaking, and contemporary American culture By Patricia R. Schroeder p.37
- ↑ Old Sock Interview , Long Edition, Special PC Edition, 2013, CD Bonus, Polydor Records