We’re heading out on a long road trip in September that will include a search through the Mississippi Delta for some historic crossroads. You’ve likely heard the song Crossroads by Eric Clapton’s Cream. That’s a cover of a song by blues legend Robert Johnson, who, legend has it, sold his soul to the Devil at a crossroads in exchange for his unmatched guitar talent. In the Cream song, at the end, you’ll hear Clapton say “I’m standing at the crossroads/Believe I’m sinking down.” That line is direct from the original and that’s Hell he’s sinking down into.
Some of the story is verified fact, some legend, some….who knows. Robert Johnson was in fact a guitar player at a young age. He played around the Delta in the early 1920’s, including the Dockery Plantation which is kind of the birthplace of blues music. The older men there, Charlie Patton, father of the blues, among them, made fun of him because he wasn’t very good. He got angry and left, on foot, not to be seen in the area again for months. When he came back, he was one the best, if not the best guitar player anyone had heard. That much is fact, corroborated by blues histories who spoke with those who were there.
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| Robert Johnson in 1936 |
Then the legend begins. The idea of meeting the Devil at the
Crossroads has a long history. In the part of Africa where many of the enslaved people of the Delta had roots, the Trickster god in their pantheon is called The Dark Man. He was the only of the gods who was unpredictable. Praying to him might get you want you wanted, or not. He was associated with places where paths or roads crossed. In America, as the Africans were introduced to Christianity, The Dark Man was a natural fit for The Devil. And so we get the Devil at the Crossroads. A story in the Delta held that you could bring your guitar to the crossroads just before midnight and play. At midnight, the Devil would appear, take your guitar from you, tune it, play some, and hand it back. From then on you’d have great skill as a guitarist, but your soul belonged to the Devil. This is what many people thought was the source of Robert Johnson’s talent. As an entertainer who depended on a certain degree of notoriety to draw audiences and make his living, Johnson did not discourage the story.
You can believe that or not. But after he became a great musician, Johnson never rested. He never lived in one place and never stayed in one place long. He traveled all through the Delta and the South, up to St. Louis and Chicago, and even to New York and Canada. It’s hard to listen to him sing “Hellhound On My Trail” and not at least entertain the idea that he did in fact believe he was trying to outrun an evil fate. He certainly lived like it.
The actual Crossroads involved in this story were never specifically nailed down. The “official” spot is the intersection of highways 49 and 61 in Clarksdale, Mississippi. There’s a big sign marking the spot, and I’ll certainly go and get some photos, but it’s a busy intersection and today features such things as a Sonic drive-thru.
We’ve also tracked down some other possibilities, much more out in the country, and these are what led me to my Devil Made Me Do It purchase of a new-to-me old lens. The Delta is very, very flat. These crossroads are dirt roads through mainly cotton fields. I thought that to capture them the way I’d like required a wide angle lens, so I found a 24mm Pentax for the Spotmatic at Roberts Camera (
https://robertscamera.com/) used gear site Used Photo Pro (
https://usedphotopro.com/ )for about $60. Buying from them was a breeze, it came quickly packed safely and in great shape. I can’t wait to try it out here then take it to the Crossroads.
I hope to come back with my soul intact. But if when I return, I’m all of a sudden shooting stuff to put Ansel Adams to shame, you’ll know what happened.
