CROSSROADS location

Subject: CROSSROADS
From:
Date: 19 Aug 97 - 01:59 PM

I know that some where in Miss. is where the crossroads meet. please tell me what roads they are on. I think its near McCombs?

Subject: RE: CROSSROADS
From: Earl
Date: 19 Aug 97 - 05:04 PM

I think you mean the famous blues crossroads at the junction of Highway 61 and Highway 49.

Subject: RE: CROSSROADS
From: Barry Finn
Date: 19 Aug 97 - 07:23 PM

In 1903 WC Handy collected a song from an old timer playing slide guitar "I'm going where the Southern cross the Dog" . The Yazoo Delta or Yellow Dog Line crosses the Southern Line around Moorehead near to the Mississippi Delta. Willie Dixon wrote "I'm going down to the crossroads", a big hit for Eric Clapton (he's great for giving credit, where credit due). The crossroads was a place for dance & music, it was also a place of magic & superstition for the folk of the Delta, as it was for Gypsies, a place of news and a meeting spot for old friends. Barry

Subject: RE: CROSSROADS
From: Earl
Date: 19 Aug 97 - 11:34 PM

It was actually Robert Johnson (or someone even earlier) who wrote the song Clapton covered. Robert Johnson supposedly sold his soul to the devil at the crossroad.

Subject: RE: CROSSROADS
From: Jon W.
Date: 20 Aug 97 - 02:04 PM

Quoting from the liner notes of "Canned Heat Blues" (RCA/BMG/Bluebird):
"In _Deep Blues_, Robert Palmer's excellent, and essential, book about the history of the blues, (Tommy)Johnson's older brother, LeDell tells scholar David Evans that "the reason he knowed so much (was) he sold hisself to the devil. He said, 'if you want to learn how to play anything..and how to make up songs yourself, you take your guitar and...go where a crossroad is...Be sure to get there a little 'fore twelve o'clock that night..Have your guitar and be sittin' there playing a piece..A big black man will walk up there and take your guitar, and he'll tune it. And then he'll play a piece and give it back to you. That's the way I learned how to play anything I want.'" End quote.

This is one of the standard legends of the blues, probably told by bluesmen to mystify their audiences and impress women. Tommy Johnson, who may have been a cousin of Robert Johnson, actually learned from Charlie Patton and Willie Brown (the same mentioned in Robert Johnson's Crossroads Blues "Run you can run, tell my friend, boy, Willie Brown..."). He is best known for his great song "Canned Heat Blues" which describes the alcoholism that actually ruined his musical career.

Subject: RE: CROSSROADS
From: Peter Timmerman
Date: 20 Aug 97 - 02:39 PM

Hey guys,check out the main Mudcat Cafe page! Click here.
Yours, Peter

Subject: RE: CROSSROADS
From: Barry Finn
Date: 20 Aug 97 - 09:43 PM

Thanks Earl, I need to be slapped for that one. Barry

Subject: RE: CROSSROADS
From: catspaw49
Date: 28 Jan 99 - 05:24 AM

If you would like to check out the "end of the road," you can go to this somewhat weird site where you can also go to others end of the lines.catspaw