Hey guys Im trying to learn to make myself learn the harp again, can't stay away and can't play a tune.....
Talked to Adam on the phone over a year ago after I saw him on video outside of Oxford saying he was at the crossroads giving a lesson.
Being raised in Greenville Ms, in the Delta and along Hwy 61 that goes to Memphis, I had heard of and even been out looking for the crossroads many times. It's a legend, of course, and Adam immediately pointed that out accurately.
The problem with this is that to Delta people, saying that crossroads was in the hills near Oxford doesn't really offend us, it's just that it's sorta like saying that Elvis is from Alabama.
We kinda think of that legend as "our" legend, a delta born legend, and something that we are proud of in a place with little to really be proud of. It's OK, but it aint right hehehe. Crossroads is NOT near Oxford, (but who cares really since it's just a legend anyway)
We do know that Johnson spent a heck of a lot of time in the Delta, lived in Tunica with his mom, and died in Greenwood, and is credited with playing "Delta Blues".
You can read all about this all over the place and find any version you just happen to like, since his life is poorly documented and lends itself to lore.
But just so ya know, "Delta People" who care about this sort of thing, generally consider the crossroad to be the intersection of Hwy 61 and Hwy 49, which is located at Clarksdale Mississippi, which is the home of the "Delta Blues Museum". I've heard that the reasoning for placing it at this location is because back in Johnson's day there were only two real roads in that part of the delta, 49 and 61, most of the roads were just gravel. If you said the words "the crossroad" in those days, people probably would have thought of this place, as was the busiest intersection in the area.
BUT WHO KNOWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hehehehehehehehe
Still I thought it important to say that you can claim the crossroads to be anyplace you wish, but in the real Delta, real Delta people think it's at clarksdale, and thus the museum I imagine.
I'm sure Adam, having written a book about this could address this more knowledgeably than anyone here, but I'm pretty sure the Crossroads myth is ancient and has its roots in African mythology.
Crossroads are considered "special" places in many, many cultures.
For instance, in Britain, many gallows were erected at crossroads. The legend being that the souls of the hanged men would not know which way to turn and would be trapped at the crossroads for eternity as punishment for their worldly crimes.
Yes the people then were very superstitious and Im not surprised to hear crossroads are special. But in the case of Robert Johnson, Delta people claim the legend as their own and site 61/49 as the location.
""In the delta of the Mississippi River, where Robert Johnson was born, they said that if an aspiring bluesman waited by the side of a deserted country crossroads in the dark of a moonless night, then Satan himself might come and tune his guitar, sealing a pact for the bluesman's soul and guaranteeing a lifetime of easy money, women, and fame. They said that Robert Johnson must have waited by the crossroads and gotten his guitar fine-tuned.
Highway 61 intersects with Highway 49 aka the Crossroads
"I went down to the crossroads and fell down on my knees, asked the Lord up above for mercy, save poor Bob if you please." --Cross Road Blues by Robert Johnson ""
I guess it really doesn't matter when the chips fall, all I know is if you go to Clarksdale Miss and tell people the crossroads is in Oxford, they will look over the top of their reading glasses and wonder where you came from hehehehehe.
When I was growing up there, the old people said it was on Hwy 1 that runs along the levee. Now it's 49/61, so who knows. A long time ago there used to be an intersection up there with a concrete post shaped like the Washington monument there with no words that many people said was crossroads, and the kids gathered there to party.
I might also mention that the reason this strikes a cord with me is that there really is a distinct difference between Delta people and Hill Country people. It transcends race, there is a distinct difference, and when someone says crossroads is in Hill Country it sorta short circuits because it contradicts this locally known difference in culture and geographic conditions.
I betcha if you ask anyone who knows about this stuff in the Delta if crossroads was in Oxford they would frown at you and say HELL no!!! hehehehe
HOWEVER, they would ALSO gladly welcome the likes of Gussow and soon call him their own!
Last Edited by on Mar 30, 2011 3:20 PM
Anybody who is truly interested in crossroads mythology would do well to read Harry Middleton Hyatt's exhaustive folkloric study, published in the mid-1930s and republished in the 1970s, entitled “Hoodoo – Conjuration – Witchcraft – Rootwork." He offers dozens of stories of crossroads soul-sales.
NONE of them take place in Mississippi. NONE of them take place in the Delta.
They take place in North and South Carolina, Virginia (mostly on the Eastern Shore), Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee. Mississippi doesn't show up.
The idea that there's a "the crossroads" and that is sits somewhere in the Delta, acknowledged by those in the know, is a joke. It's the product of scriptwriter John Fusco (author of the 1986 film CROSSROADS, starring the Karate Kid Ralph Macchio) and the Clarksdale Tourism Commission.
Robert Johnson, for what it's worth, wasn't from the Mississippi Delta. I'm sure everybody here knew that, but it's worth noting regardless, since occasionally somebody seems to think otherwise.
In Steve Cheseborough's BLUES TRAVELING: THE HOLY SITES OF THE DELTA BLUES, he notes that four different sites in Mississippi have laid claim on being "the" crossroads where Robert Johnson did the dastardly deed. I think most of them are in the Delta, but again: that's the work of tourism commissions in the various claimant towns. The only thing it's clearly NOT is the will of Mississippi's African American blues people, most of whom didn't know then and don't know now who Robert Johnson is. He was not a particularly important recording artist among Delta blacks in the 1930s--not nearly so well known as Fats Waller, Leroy Carr, and Gene Autry. So when Benny says "Delta people" claim the crossroads myth as their own, he's talking about tourism commissions and the people who staff them.
The crossroads sign in Clarksdale, duly marked "the crossroads," was erected in the late 1990s. The spot where the sign was erected has absolutely no justification, in folklore or any other legitimate or semi-legitimate source, for being identified with Robert Johnson and/or his putative crossroads soul-sale. Highways 49 and 61 didn't cross there when Robert Johnson was alive. They don't cross there now. If you don't believe that last statement, take a look at the map being distributed by the Clarksdale Tourism Office as I write these words. One of my students brought a copy to my office yesterday. The "the crossroads" [sic] sign sits at the corner of Hwy 49 and Hwy 161, an "extension" of Hwy 61.
According to Ledell Johnson, Tommy (not Robert) Johnson's jealous, freshly-Christianized, former-blues-playing brother, Tommy claimed to have sold his soul at a Delta crossroads to a big black man who was probably the devil in human form. Tommy didn't say where in Mississippi it happened. But please consider the source: Ledell was a former blues player who put down the music, literally, and gave his life to the lord. And HE'S the guy who we trust to give us the true story of his reprobate brother's crossroads soul-sale? Really? Don't you think he might have had some.....investment in associating the devil with the music he'd sworn off? Ever heard of sibling rivalry? Ever heard of brothers who don't quite understand each other and shouldn't really be speaking on each other's behalf when white folklorists (in this case, David Evans) come knocking, asking about the devil and the blues? After you've answered that question, I just might be interested in selling you some Florida development property.
THE crossroads is somewhere on the Delmarva peninsula, according to one of my students. He farmed in southern Maryland and worked with the black farmers, oystermen, and fishermen who told crossroads stories in a local gin joint. He told us this yesterday in the seminar I'm teaching on Robert Johnson, the devil's music, and the blues. It turns out that almost all of Harry Middleton Hyatt's crossroads soul-sale tales that come from Maryland are from five towns that are all clustered in this one small part of Maryland's Eastern shore--the place on the waterfront where the pirates all hang out, basically.
Many years ago--well, four years ago--I thought it would be funny to invoke crossroads mythology when I filmed a few late-night blues harmonica lessons in my car at a crossroads about five miles outside Oxford. It's a spot I visit often--not to play, but to park and begin my runs off into the countryside. I parked there late this morning, in fact, and ran three and a half miles out Rt. 334 before turning around and running a three-mile tempo run. It's a nice spot.
It's a joke, Benny. The whole thing is a joke. I've created a legend deliberately, out of whole cloth, and I don't even believe in it. I don't blame you for being skeptical of it. But your pride-of-place, insofar as it's invested in making your neck of the woods the one true home of American crossroads mythology, is misplaced. You're believing the hype. It started with Rudi Blesh, ascended with Julius Lester's interview of Son House, intensified with Greil Marcus's characterization of Robert Johnson as a "failed, orphaned Puritan," went cancerous with CROSSROADS in 1986, and shot past the moon in 1991, when the Robert Johnson COMPLETE RECORDINGS reissue went platinum. Don't believe the hype. That's unwise.
When Bryan Ward and I were searching for nice visuals on the day we were filming my "Crossroads Blues" video, we drove south from Clarksdale and found a cool spot where a crossroads sat right next to a second crossroads formed by the intersection of a road and some railroad tracks. I'm all for compelling visuals. And I'm certainly a believer in the importance, within individual musical careers, of powerful moments of transition, of spiritual exploration and ascendance, of assertions of spiritual lineage. The Delta offers some terrific scenic background for music videos that deal with such subjects. My performance of the song--the actual playing and singing of the song--took place in a recording studio in, ah, the Hill Country.
In "Me and the Devil Blues," Robert Johnson interrupts his own lyrics twice, in the third and then in the fourth stanzas, to poke fun at himself and his own deliberately outrageous claims. When he says, "Hello Satan, I believe it's time to go," he's trying to piss off the uptight old church ladies who dominated discussions of "irreverent youth" in the Delta of his time.
It's the only prewar blues song, apart from one by Bessie Smith, that uses the name Satan.
The only one.
Many prewar blues songs invoke the devil, usually to describe jealous, fickle, or otherwise enervating women. But "Me and the Devil Blues" is the only one to invoke Satan by name.
Why?
Because the (Christian) spirituals constantly invoked him, often in very personal ways. So if a bluesman wanted to piss off church people, that was incontestably the most effective way. And if he wanted to cultivate an audience among the irreverent young Delta black folk who were tired as heck of overserious, pinched-face old folk decrying their drinking, dancing, flirting, and carousing to the blues, working the Devil-lore was a pretty good bet.
Robert Johnson was bad, as in baaaaaaaaad. But he didn't sell his soul to the devil--except in the minds of uptight church people and those who believe them.
We're more hip than that, aren't we? I thought we all knew that the old people who said "Rock and roll is devil's music" were just a bunch of dried-up old fogeys. Of course we do. Robert Johnson certainly did. That's why he played them like a drum. He hoped that doing so would make him a star, the way it made Peetie Wheatstraw a star. It didn't--at least during his lifetime. But it sure as heck has now. And it's making white folks (tourism commissions, Steve LaVere, certain screenwriters and actors) quite a bit of money.
Don't let yourself be played, Benny. There's no "the crossroads," in the Delta or elsewhere. I don't care what the old people say. But regardless: the old people of the Mississippi Delta have lots of competition from old people in other parts of the South. Please track down Harry Middleton Hyatt's big old book, if you haven't already, or if you don't believe me.
Heck, if there a "the crossroads" it's probably in Accomac, Virginia.
It's certainly not my spot in the Mississippi hill country outside Oxford. That's just....A crossroads, one of many. It's a nice spot for a meetup. We're going to have one on May 20th and--ta da!!!--Mr. Satan will be there.
Well, Sterling Magee. We'll see who owns whom. Bring your flip cam.
Last Edited by on Mar 30, 2011 8:20 PM
Thats very good reading I really enjoyed it thank you! It still doesnt make the idea of the crossroad being in Oxford less silly hehehehehe. Yep, it's allllllll BS by the tourist commission, but crossroads in Oxford is pure hyperbole!
To give example, let the dept of tourism in Lafayette county try to claim it and see what happens hehehehe. On second thought don't give those wonderful Oxford attorneys any ideas!
"Yes, Lafayette county is the home of the blues as well!"
haaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahaha
I could just hear it now all across the Delta; "Thats just LIKE those arrogant a-holes in Oxford! Who is surprised by THAT BS? Next they'll be claiming to be the home of Aunt Jemima! And they invented cornbread TOO!!!! And Eli Whitney went to school there TOO! GO Miss State! hehehe"
Welcome to Mississippi my friend!!!!
Last Edited by on Mar 31, 2011 12:39 AM
I always took it that the venerable Mr Gussow was just saying he was at 'the crossroads', not that he was at 'THE crossroads'.
It seems to be a paculiarity of the english language that people almost always refer to a crossroads as the definitive article. When I'm directing people to my parents' house I will say 'turn right at the crossroads'; and it never even crossed my mind that Adam was doing anything else.
@adam tried to find hazelhurst on mississippi map and could not find it dont know what is actually the delta country but it has to be quite near the mississippi river I did find greenwood but that city is nowhere near the mighty missisipp this year being his 100th birthday hopefully will bring out more info on the legend of rj
