Crossroads

MacAllister writing about the film Crossroads and the legendary bluesman Robert Johnson, has already observed:

Crossroads figure prominently in blues mythology, because Robert Johnson—so it was said—sold his soul to the devil at a crossroads, in return for his talent. Son House said he must have done so, to play that way.

Robert Johnson's "Me and the Devil Blues" only added to the legend that he was part of an infernal bargain. In "Me and the Devil Blues" Johnson sings:

Early this mornin'

when you knocked upon my door

Early this mornin', ooh

when you knocked upon my door

And I said, "Hello, Satan,"

I believe it's time to go."

In Robert's Johnson's "Crossroads Blues," which you can hear him performing here

He sings

I went to the crossroad

Fell down on my knees

I went to the crossroad

Fell down on my knees

Asked the Lord above "Have mercy now,

Save poor Bob, if you please"

Crossroads, places where two roads, or two railroad tracks meet, represent decision points; you must choose which path to follow. Crossroads are liminal in that if you stand in the center, you are not really "at" any of the four roads; you are in a special place that is "between" places, between choices. It is at once "some place," and "no place." Consequently, crossroads are rich with potential in folklore. They are a logical place for a deal with the devil. It's worth remembering that in Haitian Voudou mythology, the intermediary and gatekeeper Papa Legba is fond of crossroads, and often associated with bargains that backfire on the mortals who make them. In the ballad of Tam Lin, Tam Lin, about to be offered as a tithe to hell by the fairies, tells his mortal lover Janet that she must meet him and pull him from his horse when he rides with the fairies:

"Just at the mirk and midnight hour

The fairy folk will ride,

And they that wad their true-love win,

At Miles Cross they maun bide."

Janet can rescue Tam Lin from the fairies at Miles Cross because it's a crossroad, a place that is neither fairy nor mortal turf but that is "between" territories, and hence, neutral territory. Crossroads are places where journeys are shaped, because the traveler must make a choice about which path to take. It was another crossroad, the one "where the Southern cross' the Dog," that helped spread the blues from the Missouri Delta to the north. Sometime around 1903 or thereabouts, W.C. Handy found himself spending several hours waiting at the train depot in Tutwiler, Missouri. His attention was caught by a singer using the back of an old knife as a slide. According to some, that was when the blues began to migrate from the Delta north. The song included a reference to "where the Southern cross the Dog":

I know the Yellow Dog District like a book,
Indeed I know the route that rider took

Every cross-tie, Bayou, burg and bog.

Way down where the Southern cross' the Dog,

Money don't zactly grow on trees

That particular crossing is in Moorehead, Missouri, where the Illinois Central tracks (back then known as the Southern) meet the Yazoo/Delta Railroad tracks, popularly known as the "Yellow Dog," now part of the Columbus and Greenville Railroad. The line has been used in several blues songs, most notably W. C. Handy's "Yellow Dog Blues." According to legend, Robert Johnson's own "encounter" is said to have happened in Rosedale, Mississippi, at the intersection of Highway 8 and Highway 1. He is neither the first nor the last to be described as striking a bargain with the devil, and signing a contract, a conceit that serves as a pivotal plot point in the film Crossroads. Bluesman Tommy Johnson (no relation) claimed, according to his brother, to have struck a similar bargain at a cross roads with the devil. There's also a blues recorded by Clara Smith in 1924 "Done Sold My Soul To The Devil (And My Heart's Done Turned To Stone)" that uses the familiar Faustian bargain motif of a contract with the devil. Much the same was asserted about "demonically gifted" violinist Niccol