*I ended up running a few miles worth form the main road on the way to my family reunion. This is the first year I ended up running form the main road to the reunion.* As I recall from what I read in an interview with Livewire with
David 'Honeyboy' Edwards, - - Livewire: What is your take on the story of Robert Johnson selling his soul to devil at the crossroads? Honeyboy: [Hesitant pause] Well, I don't know about that. He told me that but...we used to play and drink together and have fun together but at the crossroads.... When I was young I use to go to the crossroads myself and play in the country. In those days at the crossroads in the country the stars and the moon were so bright. There wasn't no city lights or anything like that. It was so bright you could look across the field and see a person walking about two blocks away. The stars and the moon were so bright it looked like it was six 'o clock in the morning, when it was twelve 'o clock at night. When I lived across the field, I'd go down this road 'till it hit another road going over to somebody else's house I'd just sit out there in the middle of the crossroads. I'd be out there with my half-pint of whiskey in my pocket and I'd sit out there at twelve 'o clock at night in the summertime and just play my guitar and have a drink. Then I'd go over to my friend's house and we'd hook up and play a little bit together. I had a guitar player that I knowed and we'd just practice with one another. That's how I learned. He may learn a chord that I don't know and I'd say, 'how'd you do that?' That's how we learned how to play like that. Then after I started playing then I went to a music store and bought me a guitar book, a chord book so I'd be able to...it's like I said before, there's a lot of good blues musicians out there today that don't know what the hell they're playin' in. When you know your chords and know where to go you don't have to ask nobody nothing. If you get together with other good blues players, I don't have to know you and you don't have to know me. It's like, 'hey, man I've heard some of the stuff you've done on wax," or whatever, and so I'll say, 'we'll do this in the key of A,' and he know how to go to his A and I'll know how to go to my A. When you do that, you got to be right.- -On my surprisingly quiet run (on the same road that my family passes by on to the reunion once a year) about a mile or so from the main road, I remember how quite it was, running when there wasn't a soul around. No cars, people, just the acres of fig tree and orange groves and the miles and miles of old road. At maybe, 10:30, 11:00 in the morning, I remember the heat already. When I arrived at the crossroads to head to the reunion... y'a, I had my harmonica and my camera at the time. I wanted to film show how quite and 'remote' it seemed at the crossroads, not the crossroads in mississippi, but rather 10-15 miles outside Chowchilla, CA. With the blues harmonica backing up in the video, I only really stood out there for about a minute somewhat tired and hot, not playing all too great/much because I was 'hot and tired', then I contiued on running. Now I've got a slight idea what it may been like in the Mississippi Delta outside of many towns.-
-The intresting thing when I got to the reunion site was that the river nearby was flowin' again, and that I've been able to catch crawdads and swim down from upstream, hey I was at the river with most of my cousins much of the day. It was one of the best years at the reunion I had since maybe 2006, 2007. And after the trip, at home, my guitar playing only seems to get better, it seems like it every week, little better each week. Pry just mee...*
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Robert Johnson- Crossroadby Coredump7,533,695 views
It must have been a profound experience for you. Thank you for sharing your moment, and playing your song.
otherlyn 1 year ago