CLARKSDALE, Miss. — Bluesman Robert Johnson played the guitar with such genius that legend has it his talent was a gift from the devil in exchange for the musician's soul. That deal was done, according to lore, at "the crossroads" in Clarksdale, Miss.
That exact crossroads, of U.S. Highways 61 and 49, is about an hour's drive south of Memphis in the huge, pancake-flat Mississippi Delta. It's the largely rural region in the northwest corner of the state that runs along the Mississippi River.
