Bluesman Drives the Devil to the Crossroads

Mr. Stevens Explains the Devil's Proposition to Bluesman Herbert T. Barrow. And Why He Dresses Like a Preacher.

“I’m not a preacher,” says Stevens.

“Well then, why you go around dressing like a preacher?”

“Hey, it’s a free country, innit? Listen,” he says, “you can look high and low in this world of ours and you’d be hard pressed to find any evidence of God’s existence. Ain’t that right?”

“Boy howdy,” I say. “I’ve certainly never seen any.”

“On the other hand, evidence of the Devil’s existence is everywhere you look. But the only reason you don’t acknowledge this is that you insist the two deities are linked together.”

Hearing him put it that way, I let out a laugh. “The two deities, that’s funny. I almost like that!”

“No, no,” he says, excited. ”Just one. You only need to believe in the Devil.”

“The Devil? Shit!”

“No! The Devil is your friend,” says Stevens. “The Devil’s proposition is the only one that makes any sense.”

“And what is the Devil’s proposition?”

“Don’t be weak, don’t be meek. You see something you want, take it. Somebody gets in your way, knock them down. Do anything you want. Satisfy your cravings. Don’t regret anything. Life won’t last forever, so enjoy it while you have it. You’re going to Hell anyway. All the Devil asks is that you give him your soul.” Stevens smiles sweetly, like he’s proud of his explanation.

“And that’s why you’re heading to the Crossroads? To trade in your soul for something?”

“Not exactly,” he says with a grin. Then I see the sign for the Highway 61 Crossroads.

(Excerpt from Friend of the Devil, available on Kindle) .

"Friend of the Devil" - Blues Musician Gives a Lift to the Devil, Who's Late for a Midnight Meeting at the Crossroads.

Stevens takes a look into the backseat and sees my guitar. “So, you’re a musician?” he asks.

I nod. “That I am,” I say.

“What do you play?”

I flash him my entertainer’s smile and say, “I play anything I can get paid a nickel for.”

“Ah,” he says, smiling like it’s a good thing. “I used to play the guitar myself when I was young. Don’t play much anymore.”

I nod and we fall back into silence for a minute. Then I ask him, “So where in Tupelo you going?”

I watch the way he grinds his hairy country face, and I know that means his story is about to start changing. “Ah, yes, well,” he says, “it’s not actually Tupelo proper, but the crossroads just outside town.”

At that, my ears perk up. “The Crossroads? You mean Highway 61?”

“Why, yes, yes,” he says. “Highway 61. I was supposed to meet a man there at midnight.”

“At midnight?”

“Yes,” he says. “That’s when we agreed to meet. But like I told you, I’ve had a lot of problems and now I’m late.”

“The Crossroads at midnight?”

“Yes.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I’ve got to tell you, I’ve been a street singer and traveling bluesman for some years now and I’ve probably had a hundred different cats tell me the same tale about meeting a man at midnight at the Highway 61 Crossroads. I let out a little chuckle. “So what were you planning on doing, Mister Stevens? Selling your soul to the Devil?”

Naturally, I expect him to laugh with me, but instead his jaw drops like he’s in shock.

“Whu, whu, what are you talking about?” he asks.

“Come on,” I say, “Devil at the Crossroads, that’s what you’re talking about, right? It’s only the oldest joke in the world.”

“Joke?” He looks genuinely astounded. “What on earth are you talking about?”

So, fool that I am, I tell it to him. “A musician meets the Devil at the Crossroads at midnight, he hands over his guitar, the Devil fiddles with the tuning and hands it back. From that moment on, the musician plays better than anyone else, and money, women, whiskey, cars and fine clothes all come his way, until the day the Devil comes for him and takes him away.”

Stevens listens in horror. “They tell that story?”

“All the time.”

“They do?”

I nod.

“But you said it’s a joke.”

“It is a joke,” I tell him.

“But jokes are supposed to be funny.”

“You might think it was funny if you heard how bad some of these guys play,” I say and laugh again.

(Friend of the Devil, available on Kindle here)

The Road to Del Rio II: Highway 61 Crossroads, Mississippi

This is the second stop of our trip through the Southlands with fugitive bluesman Herbert T. Barrow.

Three days and nearly a thousand miles out of Knoxville, Herbert T. Barrow is driving north through Mississippi and still no sign of any cops on his trail. Are they real or just part of his hopped-up, reefered-out imagination?

Herbert's plan is to head west through northern Louisiana and keep going till he gets back home to Eagle Ford in West Dallas and then keep his head down until everything cools down enough that it's safe to start playing the joints in Deep Ellum. But it doesn't quite work out that way. A couple miles before he's supposed to make his turn, he makes the mistake of picking up a country preacher who's hitch-hiking and obviously having a difficult time of it. Suddenly, for no great reason at all, Herbert agrees to give the preacher a ride to, of all places, a crossroads just outside of Tupelo, where, he says, he was supposed to meet someone the previous midnight.

Being a bluesman, Herbert has heard the legend of the Devil at the Crossroads countless times from his

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black colleagues. It was something he considered kind of pathetic. The black bluesmen needed to make up stories about themselves to increase their 'badness.' Herbert is a staunch atheist and he detests talk about the Devil almost as much as he hates talk about God. He wonders if the legend could have gotten so far that the crossroads could now be attracting white country preachers eager to strike a deal with the Devil.

Here is Robert Johnson's original version of Crossroads.

Following is an excerpt from Friend of the Devil, right at the moment Herbert and Stevens arrive at the Crossroads:


Hillbilly boy standing in my headlights, tall, skinny, with eyes as big and wild-looking as a jackrabbit’s, and seeing him, I’m thinking, man, if he’s the Devil, then I’m Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

He stands, feet slightly apart, hands half-clenched into fists, like he’s expecting a fight. But seeing how his shoulders droop, it’s obvious he already knows the outcome, because if anyone was ever born already defeated, it’s got to be him. Bet he isn’t twenty five, but life has already worn him down to a nub. Wife, kids, the work that he either can’t find, or, when he does, never pays enough to separate him from worry. And being what he is, he got used to cutting corners here and there and probably got caught at it more than once, because he’s got that same broken look as half the boys did back at Eastham Farm.

And this is the guy’s got something for Stevens that’s more valuable than gold? Shit, he don’t look like someone you’d bother crossing the street to collect money from. He’s just some poor, dumb hillbilly with nothing in his hands but his fists. Then I notice there’s something lying at his feet, something half-wrapped in a scrap of burlap, something small and inconsequential. But then why is it there and why has he elected to stand his ground directly behind it?

Devil at the Crossroads? Boring!

As a bluesman wandering America in the 1930s, Herbert T. Barrow was one of the few white men to hear the story of meeting the Devil at the crossroads. But it wasn’t something he paid much mind to. The way he saw it, half the black cats he knew told that yarn about themselves and a lot weren’t all that hot guitar players. But the real reason was that Herbert Barrow was an atheist. He didn’t hold with God, the Devil, preachers, or spook-talking hoodoo men of any stripe.

But then one day, against his better judgment, Herbert gives a ride to a country preacher who it turns out happens to be on his way to those same crossroads. But he’s not there to sell his soul, he’s there to collect one. The problem is, he’s already ten hours late for his midnight meeting and needs Herbert to drive him fast as he can to get him there on time. Again, against his better judgment, Herbert obliges.

What he witnesses there at the crossroads and over the next few days would probably have convinced anyone else that God and the Devil were not only real, but also running extremely convoluted wagers with each other over how quickly virtuous men succumb to temptation. Anyone else might have been shocked to learn that, while the Devil was unmistakably evil, his opposite number was mostly uninvolved and distant. But of course, all this is missing on Herbert T. Barrow, whose refusal to believe is unwavering.

All Herbert wants is to get through Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas and not stop until he reaches Del Rio, on the Mexican border. While the rest of America is caught in the grips of the Great Depression, Del Rio is an oasis of prosperity and hope. That is because Del Rio is home of the Brinkley Hospital, a world famous sexual rejuvenation clinic. Dr. JR Brinkley, its celebrated founder, has developed a revolutionary method of transplanting the testicles of goats onto those of well-heeled human patients, giving them new lease on virility. Or so he says. 

To get his message out, Brinkley has built the world’s most powerful radio station across the river in Mexico. Most of the time, its million watts are delivering his folksy lectures about sexual health. The rest of the time it’s being rented out to hucksters, preachers, clairvoyants and yodelers, all with their own messages of hope and transformation and all of them there for just one reason; money.  

Despite his background as a reefer-smoking, tea-shade-wearing, jazz-playing viper, Herbert’s plan is to enter their ranks as a singing cowboy. But besides God and the Devil, a couple other things stand in his way. First is his adoring younger cousin Clyde and second, Clyde's alley-cat girlfriend Bonnie. They’re young, hop-headed, crazy in love, meaner than snakes, and can’t be convinced that Herbert wouldn’t be the perfect third wheel to their criminal outfit. Then there’s Hamer, Captain Frank Hamer of the Texas Rangers, a natural-born killer and possibly the only honest lawman in Texas. He’s pledged to hunt down the Barrows and isn’t stopping till he has every last one of them dead. Unfortunately that includes Herbert.

In a series of battles that stretches across the South, the Midwest and onto the streets of Del Rio, Herbert finds himself up against God, the Devil, Frank Hamer and assorted bloodthirsty minions. Time and again, he manages to survive, only to see things get worse and worse. But just as his situation is looking hopeless, he finds a powerful, unexpected ally; a pregnant, underage, bible-reading radio clairvoyant named Rose Dawn.

Friendof the Devil is available as an ebook on Kindle.