Some context: "Cross Road Blues" (also known as "Crossroads") is a blues song written and recorded by American blues artist Robert Johnson in 1936. Johnson performed it as a solo piece with his vocal and acoustic slide guitar in the Delta blues-style. The song has become part of the Robert Johnson mythology as referring to the place where he supposedly sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for his musical talents, although the lyrics do not contain any specific references. Bluesman Elmore James revived the song with recordings in 1954 and 1960-1961.
A crossroads or an intersection of rural roads is one of the few landmarks in the Mississippi Delta, a flat featureless plain between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers. It is part of the local iconography and various businesses use the name, such as gas stations, banks, and retail shops. A crossroads is also where cars are more likely to slow down or stop, thus presenting the best opportunity for a hitchiker. In the simplest reading, Johnson describes his grief at being unable to catch a ride at an intersection before the sun sets. However, many see different levels of meaning and some have attached a supernatural significance to the song. Both versions of the song open with the protagonist kneeling at a crossroads to ask God's mercy, while the second sections tells of his failed attempts to hitch a ride. In the third and fourth sections, he expresses apprehension at being stranded as darkness approaches and asks that his friend Willie Brown be advised that "I'm sinkin' down". The first take of the song, which was used for the single, includes a fifth verse that is not included in the second take. In it he laments not having a "sweet woman" in his distress. The song has been used to perpetuate the myth of Johnson selling his soul to the Devil for his musical ability. The lyrics do not contain any references to Satan or a Faustian bargain, but they have been interpreted as a description of the singer's fear of losing his soul to the Devil (presumably in exchange for his talent). Music historian Elijah Wald believes that Johnson's verses do not support the idea. Delta bluesman Tommy Johnson promoted himself as having made a deal with the Devil and Southern folklore identifies a crossroads or graveyard as the site of such a pact, which Wald identifies as likely sources of the myth. However, musicologist Robert Palmer points out that Johnson was "fascinated with and probably obsessed by supernatural imagery." His song "Hellhound on My Trail" tells of trying to stay ahead of the demon hound which is pursuing him and in "Me and the Devil Blues" he sings, "Early this mornin' when you knocked upon my door, and I said 'Hello Satan I believe it's time to go'". These songs contribute to the Faustian myth; how much Johnson promoted the idea is debated, although many agree "the 'devil angle' made for good marketing". Blues historian Samuel Charters sees the song as having elements of protest and social commentary. The second verse includes "the sun goin' down now boy, dark gon' catch me here", a reference to the "sundown laws" or curfew during racial segregation in the United States. Signs in the rural South advised "Nigger, don't let the sun set on you here". Johnson may be expressing a real fear of trumped up vagrancy charges or even lynchings that still took place. Others suggest that the song is about a deeper and more personal loneliness. Writers Barry Lee Pearson and Bill McCulloch argue that the fifth verse in the single version captures the essence of the song: "left alone, abandoned, or mistreated, he stands at the crossroad, looking this way or that for his woman".
What else does the song say?
A: The song has been used to perpetuate the myth of Johnson selling his soul to the Devil for his musical ability.
Some context: Hiatt was born in 1952 to Ruth and Robert Hiatt, the sixth of seven children in a Roman Catholic family from Indianapolis. When he was nine years old, Hiatt's 21-year-old brother Michael committed suicide. Only two years later, his father died after a long illness. To escape from the stress of his early life, Hiatt watched IndyCar racing and listened to Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, and the blues.
Hiatt finally came into success in 1987, when he released his first big hit, Bring the Family. For the album, Hiatt had a backing band consisting of Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe, and Jim Keltner. Most of the songs on the album have since been extensively covered, especially "Have a Little Faith in Me," which has been covered by a number of artists, including Joe Cocker, Delbert McClinton, Jewel, Bill Frisell, Mandy Moore and Bon Jovi; and "Memphis in the Meantime", which has been covered by Carl Perkins and Gregg Allman. "Thank You Girl" was a moderate radio hit, but nothing that would garner Hiatt national attention, although the B-side of the single featured a non-album duet with Loudon Wainwright III on a cover of the Temptations' hit "My Girl" (Hiatt returned the favor on the B-side of Wainwright's single "Your Mother and I"). Most notably, Bonnie Raitt would bring "Thing Called Love" to No. 11 on the US charts with her 1989 release, Nick of Time. Following Bring the Family, Hiatt had a string of nine straight studio albums hit the Billboard 200. In 1988, he returned to the studio to record Slow Turning, which would be his first album to hit the upper half of the Billboard 200. It also featured his only top ten chart single, the title track, which hit No. 8 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, and "Tennessee Plates", which was used in the soundtrack of the Ridley Scott directed and Academy Award winning film Thelma and Louise in 1991. In 1989, The Jeff Healey Band covered the Hiatt-penned song "Angel Eyes" and took it to the Top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100.
What was that hit?
A:
Bring the Family.