The Crossroads — Highways 61 and 49

Highway 61 runs north-south through the Delta; Highway 49 crosses it in Clarksdale. Three giant blue guitars mark the intersection next to Abe's BBQ. This is one of several sites claimed as the crossroads where Robert Johnson met the devil and traded his soul for mastery of the guitar. Other places make the same claim: the intersection of Highways 8 and 1 near Rosedale, Dockery, Beulah. No one knows which, if any, is the actual spot.

What's verified is that Johnson recorded "Cross Road Blues" in San Antonio in November 1936, and that Highway 49 was the subject of songs by Big Joe Williams and Howlin' Wolf. The crossroads story predates Johnson—Tommy Johnson and others told versions of the same myth. The legend stuck to Robert Johnson and to this intersection because Clarksdale became the Delta's blues capital, the place where the music that came out of the cotton fields got heard.

The monument is here. Stand under the guitars at dusk and the story becomes less a tourist hook than a way of naming what happened in this region—music so good it required an explanation beyond technique or talent. The Delta drained into the Gulf; the highways moved people and sound out. What moved through here changed American music. The guitars mark the spot where people decided the story started.