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The Crossroads
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If you’re familiar with the Blues then you’re familiar with Robert Johnson, and if you’re familiar with Robert Johnson then you have surely heard of the Crossroads. But just in case you don’t know the story, here is an overview...
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Robert Johnson spent his youth listening to blues greats such as Son House and Charley Patton. He admired them and wanted to play as well as they did. One night after listening to young Robert, several of the older bluesmen said that the boy had no talent. Robert was devastated and soon thereafter disappeared from the Delta blues scene.
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Years went by and, just as quietly as he’d left, Robert Johnson reappeared in the Delta. But this time, he was a far cry from the untalented boy who had been ridiculed. In fact, his talent was so great that the rumor soon spread that his talent was the result of an unholy contract.
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You see, it was a well-known fact throughout the Delta that if you really wanted great talent you could get it by making a contract with the Devil. To do so, you would wait for him at a crossroads at midnight. In return for your new talent, you simply had to sign over your soul. And such a deal was struck, as legend has it, between Robert Johnson and the Devil.
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The story may sound far-fetched, but there can be no argument that Robert Johnson had an immense talent. In fact, not many musicians can replicate his playing style due to the finger positions on the neck of the guitar. He is also readily known as the greatest bluesman of them all.
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Mississippi Highways 61 and 49 are the two great Blues highways and they intersect in Clarksdale. It is that intersection that most people accept as the Crossroads of the legend.
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