Entry · catalog no. 1191
the crossroads
/ /ðə ˈkrɔsroʊdz/ /thuh KRAWSS-rohdz
noun · the Mississippi Delta and the Black South; the deep background is West African and Caribbean · 1930s
✓ Verified
1.
In hoodoo, the place where a person goes alone at midnight, usually for a set number of nights running, to meet the spirit who owns the crossing and be given a skill — most famously the guitar, tuned for you by hands that are not yours. Hyatt collected the rite across twelve states between 1936 and 1940; it was a live folk practice, described by people who had done it or knew someone who had, and it existed independently of any bluesman's legend.
“They said he could not play a lick in the spring and by fall he was the best in the county. You know where they said he went.”
2.
By extension, the point of no return in a life — the moment a person makes the trade that decides the rest of it.
“He was at the crossroads the day he signed that contract and he knew it.”
Origin & Attribution
Black Southern hoodoo, with roots the scholarship traces to West African and diasporic figures who own the crossing — Eshu-Elegbara among the Yoruba, Legba among the Fon — the trickster-messenger invoked first and last in ceremony and the one who carries all traffic between people and the other spirits. The continuity into Haitian Vodou and New Orleans practice as Papa Legba is well documented.
1936
Robert Johnson records Cross Road Blues, 27 November, San Antonio; released May 1937 on Vocalion 03519
1940
Harry Middleton Hyatt completes fieldwork including a section titled Sell Self to the Devil — independent confirmation that the rite was live practice, not a legend built around one musician
1971
David Evans publishes Tommy Johnson, printing the crossroads account he collected from Rev. LeDell Johnson about his brother
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The South
the Mississippi Delta and the Black South; the deep background is West African and Caribbean · 1930s
Spoken by
Black Southerners; hoodoo workers, blues musicians, and the communities that talked about both
$THECROThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Enduring90 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
70/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1936
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
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New Orleans, LA
@htxdri
Houston, TX
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Citations & Sources
■
Robert Johnson, Cross Road Blues, recorded 27 November 1936, released Vocalion 03519, May 1937
song · recorded
■
Harry Middleton Hyatt, Hoodoo–Conjuration–Witchcraft–Rootwork, vol. 1, 1970, from fieldwork 1936–1940
book · printed
■
David Evans, Tommy Johnson, Studio Vista, 1971
book · printed
■
+ Cite a sourcePete Welding, Hell Hound on His Trail, Down Beat, 1966 — the origin of the Robert Johnson attribution
magazine · printed
See also