The Crossroads is a non-profit website dedicated to guitar players. We strive to offer original content that features insight and help for musicians of any level and experience. In addition to those tools, we offer similar content to non-musicians in order to help make the leap to guitar playing.
The name "The Crossroads" comes from a classic blues song by Robert Johnson, who was a popular blues guitar player and songwriter in the early part of the 20th century. Johnson was a man of mystery, and little is actually known today about what his life was like, aside from the 30 or so songs that remain on record from his catalogue of music. A large part of the mythology of Robert Johnson involves a story told in his song, "Crossroad Blues," which describes a time in which Johnson met the devil at a Crossroads (the exact location is debated, but it was likely in the Mississippi Delta) and he sold is soul to the devil in exchange for being a virtuoso guitar player. The strangest part about this song is the fact that many of his contemporaries claim to have witnessed the event, and another popular blues player of that era, Son House, claims that Johnson was not a very good musician, but he disappeared for a few months and came back as one of the best guitar players around.
This title was chosen for this website as a double entendre. For one, it is a literal homage to Johnson, one of the blues greats who helped shape what music of many different genres would sound like for generations. Another meaning, however, is that it is used as irony to show that "selling your soul to the devil" is NOT the only way to become a proficient, and even a virtuoso, musician. Come to The Crossroads, and walk away a better musician.
To find out more about Robert Johnson and his music, visit The Robert Johnson Blues Foundation. I would also highly recommend the book "Escaping the Delta" by Elijah Wald, which chronicles the history of Robert Johnson, attempting to debunk as many myths as possible in the process.
