Cross Road Blues

Here we go.

So the Robert Johnson's Crossroads legend is one of the most famous American folktales in blues music.

The story that the Delta bluesman sold his soul to the devil at a midnight crossroads in exchange for the extraordinary guitar talent.

Yes, indeed.

some versions added that he was given only a short time to live and he tragically actually passed away at the ripe young age of 27 years old which many of us have talked about this in the conspiracy space for a long time the 27 club we talk about kurt cobain and uh jim morrison and some of these other uh wild coincidences of this very similar thing happening these people become uh massively famous and wealthy by the time they're very young and then pass away they burn out very early And I'm not suggesting any of those people actually made a deal with the devil.

So everybody settled down.

But this this in particular, the Crossroads box set and the album that subsequently came out of Robert Johnson's disappearance into the wilderness and his return to stage and recording was astonishing.

And people didn't know how to describe it.

yeah and but and so something kind of gets birthed out of the the loss or the ending of someone and so it's cool because even in the book you mentioned gary i mean he's like alive in the book still and i love like you know we right away we were talking about robert johnson and the crossroads and people you know how there's the whole story about he sold his cell to the soul to the devil there and I had actually researched that a few years ago.

And I mentioned to you right when I came on that I was like, oh my gosh, I've had so much chaos.

Just when I started reading about the Crossroads stuff and Robert Johnson, and when I was researching it a few years ago, making content, I had the same things happen.

And you were like, yeah, I've been through that too.

And Gary also had an experience where he went to the Crossroads to get some dirt and experience some stuff.

So Maybe we could start this conversation kind of talking about Robert Johnson and the crossroads and that kind of deal and just the stuff around that.

I'd love to.

Even though it kind of appears in the book kind of smack dab in the middle of the book, it really is kind of the original rock and roll, I don't know, legend, if you will.

Welcome to a deep dive into the occult conspiracies that have defined rock and roll.

Now, the legend of Robert Johnson and the Crossroads is perhaps the most pervasive and influential myth in the history of modern music.

It serves as the genesis story for rock and roll, establishing the trope of the tortured, supernaturally gifted artist.

However, to understand the conspiracy of the crossroads, you have to look past the supernatural veneer and examine the intersection of West African spiritual traditions, the socio-economic reality of the Jim Crow South, and the calculated marketing of the 1960s blues revival.

When Columbia Records released King of the Delta Blues Singers in 1961, it reached a young, white audience in the UK, including such future luminaries as Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, and Jimmy Page.

These musicians were captivated by the spookiness of their recordings.

Producers and writers, recognizing the commercial power of a cursed artist, leaned heavily into the Crossroads myth.

Peter Goralnik, in his seminal work, Searching for Robert Johnson, notes that the myth grew because it filled the void left by the lack of biographical facts.