Crossroads three giant blue guitars

Three metal guitars mark the junction that Mississippi has officially named the Crossroads of blues legend, the place fans have long linked to the rumour that Robert Johnson bargained with the devil for his guitar playing.

According to the Mississippi Blues Trail, the intersection of what were Highways 49 and 61 became locally known as the crossroads in the 1930s, and blues fans later adopted it as "THE" crossroads of Johnson lore. Clarksdale's Board of Mayor and Commissioners initiated a resolution that the state legislature passed in April 1999, authorising the city to designate the junction as the Crossroads. The Trail notes that other places have been proposed or promoted as Johnson's crossroads, among them Dockery, Cleveland, Leland, Rosedale, Ruleville and even Memphis, and that the 1986 film Crossroads used a site in Beulah. Clarksdale gained the most traction, it says, as a historical centre of blues activity and an intersection already known by that name.