Searching for Robert Johnson’s Crossroads

Shane Pinnegar

 

Satan seemed to be dropping hints – firstly, I’d racked up a bill of $6.66 in a Voodoo shop in Memphis - even the lovely shop owner was so spooked that she made me buy something else rather than accept $6.66.  The dark clouds had been gathering above more and more as we drove north through Mississippi towards Robinsonville and Dockery Plantation, where Robert Johnson and many others (including Son House and Charlie Patton) had lived and worked and got into mischief.

 

The radio was playing George Thorogood’s Bad to the Bone as we turned onto Highway 8, and segued into AC/DC’s Highway to Hell as we neared the intersection with Dockery Road.

 

We were less than a mile away when Kim suddenly slammed his foot on the brake and pointed at the odometer.  It seems too surreal to have actually happened, but there we were: within a mile of the intersection of Old Highway 8 and Dockery Road, Mississippi, and the odometer read 41,666.

 

Was Old Sparky eagerly anticipating our arrival?  Should we have been nervous for our souls?  Maybe - after all, we were in search of the infamous intersection where legendary bluesman Robert Johnson allegedly handed over the rights to his soul in return for guitar mastery, and we were getting closer.

 

 

Robert Johnson, the King of the Delta Blues Singers, was born in nearby Hazelhurst in either 1911 or 1912, moving to Robinsonville when he was around 8.  In 2 extended Texas recording sessions in San Antonio in November 1936 and Dallas in June 1937 respectively, he recorded a scant 29 songs, 13 of which he also recorded alternate takes of. 

 

A little over a year after the second session, Johnson was dead, leaving two enormous legacies which survive to this day, influencing thousands of blues and rock guitarists and singers, as well as cultural and music historians over the past 70-plus years.  Both of these legacies remain strangely intangible and unquantifiable, but are nonetheless undeniable.

 

His musical influence is ever-present.  Who knows where blues, and then rock music would have gone without generation after generation of future rock stars discovering his canon of work.

 

Eric Clapton is a huge fan, having recorded a full album of Johnson’s songs (Me and Mr Johnson, 2004) as well as plenty of covers dating back to his days in Cream, and has referred to Johnson as “The most important blues singer that ever lived.”  Led Zeppelin have acknowledged how indebted they are to Johnson and other Delta Blues musicians by presenting a memorial plaque to the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

 

Other famous fans to have cited him as an influence or covered Johnson’s songs include Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Peter Green, John Hammond, Keef Richards, Brian Jones, The Rolling Stones, ZZ Top, Jimi Hendrix, Robert Cray, Robert Plant, George Harrison, Robbie Robertson, Bonnie Raitt and many more.

 

Secondly, Johnson’s ethereal life story gave us the enduring legend of The Crossroads. 

 

Martin Scorcese was once quoted as saying “The thing about Robert Johnson was that he only existed on his records. He was pure legend”, but the legend and facts surrounding Johnson both agree that when he left Robinsonville with his guitar around 1929 he was an aspiring blues guitarist and singer somewhat lacking in ability, who often followed early blues legends such as Charley Patton and Son House around trying to emulate their style. 

 

Patton grew up working on Dockery Plantation, which still exists today and is owned by the grandson of the original owners.  The cotton fields throughout Mississippi were largely worked by African American slaves (and, later, sharecroppers), and it is commonly felt amongst blues historians that Dockery farm is where the blues began, evolving from the “field hollering” style of singing.

 

 

 

When Johnson returned a few short months later, House and others were shocked to see him sporting an allegedly “miraculous” guitar technique, and he started travelling throughout the Delta earning a living as a musician.

 

The Blues in those days was considered highly anti-social and immoral, and the story quickly spread that Robert Johnson had sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for mastery over the blues guitar – how else could he have become so proficient so quickly, asked the superstitious folk of rural Mississippi in the early 30s? 

 

Folk stories of deals with the Devil abound throughout African American and European culture, and Johnson’s mysterious death in 1938 merely reinforced the legend and he was held up as an example of the dangers of toying with the occult or attempting to bargain with Lucifer. 

 

According to the legend, Johnson went to a crossroad near Dockery Plantation (thought to be the intersection of Dockery Road and Old Highway 8) at midnight with his guitar and waited for a large black man to appear.   This man - The Devil in human form – tuned Johnson’s guitar, played a few songs on it, and returned it to Johnson, an act which apparently bestowed mastery of the instrument upon him, but also effectively transferred ownership of his soul to Satan.

 

I initially wanted to visit these Crossroads at midnight with a bottle of Jack Daniels and see if Old Sparky appeared, whereupon I would interview him for a few answers about Robert Johnson and more.  A friend suggested that as a long haired guy drunk in the back roads of Mississippi, I might have considerably more trouble if any rednecks stumbled across me, than if The Devil decided to show his face.  After all, he reasoned, you can negotiate with Satan, you can’t reason with rednecks!

 

Clarksdale, Mississippi has a monument erected at the crossroads of Highway 49 and 61, declaring it the “official Crossroads”, but this fails to add up on a couple of levels.  For one thing, the monument is erected at the crossroads of the 49 exit and 61, not the actual highways.  For another thing, this was a very busy intersection even in the thirties, so the chances of anyone choosing to stand in the middle of two busy highways waiting for The Lord of Darkness to appear and have a fiddle on their guitar is pretty unlikely.

 

Within a mile of Dockery plantation is the intersection of Highway 8 and Dockery road, and it is literally a few hundred feet from here we found ourselves as Highway to Hell came on the radio and the odometer clicked over to 666.

 

 

 

I had a swig of Jack Daniels for Robert at this intersection, and gave a splash on the tarmac for him as well – even though this wasn’t the fabled intersection, these were Robert’s old stomping grounds and it felt vibrant and exciting to stand where he had probably stood.

 

We then set off up the dirt track of Dockery Road in search of the intersection of Old Highway 8.  We found several old neglected intersections which appear to be unused nowadays, and I had another drink with Robert at the one we felt was most likely Old 8.  The storm clouds rumbled, blacker by the moment, but by now the odometer had clocked forward and Skullface didn’t make it – no doubt to our loved one’s relief!

 

Did we have the correct intersection?  No signposts exist there any more and I have read two online articles describing different allegedly “real” crossroads in the general vicinity.  Whether this was Old 8 or not, Kim summed it up best – we had found OUR Crossroads.

 

And what of Robert and Old Scratch?  Well, the sensible amongst us would say that Robert Johnson just found a good teacher and practised a lot, but being a loner and a womaniser and something of a rogue, he probably liked the idea of the Crossroads story adding to his mystique.

 

Me - I like to think that if I’d been at the Crossroads at midnight, I might have encountered the big guy, and this story may have ended very differently indeed…

 

 

For those wanting more…

 

CD

 

The Complete Robert Johnson 2CD set

This box set contains every known take Johnson recorded apart from one alternate take of Travelling Riverside Blues.

 

The King Of The Delta Blues Singers

This CD, first released in the 60s, includes the aforementioned alternate take of Travelling Riverside Blues.

 

DVD

 

The Life & Music of Robert Johnson (Can’t you hear the wind howl?)

1997, hosted by Danny Glover and featuring Keb Mo as Robert Johnson

 

The Crossroads

1986, starring Ralph Macchio, Joe Seneca, Jami Gertz & Steve Vai

 

The Search for Robert Johnson

2000, hosted by John Hammond and with Eric Clapton & Honeyboy Edwards