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?