Urban Legend Up Close - Crossroad Demon

In Crossroad Blues we first meet the Crossroad Demon, a wicked entity that can be summoned to grant your heart’s desire. The price? Eventually your soul will be claimed and you’ll be dragged kicking and screaming to hell. In this second season episode, Dean considers making a deal with the demon to bring his father back from the dead, but the junior Winchester ends up fighting temptation and instead saves a self-sacrificing, married man from the snapping jaws of hellhounds.

“And the day keeps on remindin' me, there's a hellhound on my trail”

So, does this powerful deal-making demon exist? No one can say for sure, but urban legend has it that legendary musician Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil at the crossroad of Highway 8 and Highway 1 in Rosedale, Mississippi in order to be the best blues player there ever was. According to folklore, the young black musician was instructed to take his guitar to that intersection at midnight where he met the devil, who tuned his guitar and handed it back to him with the skill to play like no other.

“Early this mornin', ooh, when you knocked upon my doorAnd I said, ‘Hello, Satan, I believe it's time to go. Me and the devil, was walkin' side by side’”

Other stories indicate the origin of the tale actually began with another Delta bluesman, Tommy Johnson. Yet, somehow, the mythology has best stuck to Robert Johnson. Perhaps because he seemed supernaturally gifted, maybe because he sang songs like, “Me and the Devil” and “Hellhound on my Trail,” or it could be because he actually died at a country crossroad near Greenwood, Mississippi. Despite Johnson’s 1938 death, some people believe the devil keeps getting his due anytime an artist sings Crossroad Blues. Eric Clapton, The Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Led Zeppelin and Curt Cobain have all sampled or remade Johnson’s devilish tune and met with great tragedy. Whatever the case, before you consider singing the song or heading for the nearest crossroad remember one thing…payback’s a bitch.