The Crossroads Guitar Festival was a music festival and benefit concert first held in 2004 and again in 2007. The festival benefited Eric Clapton's Crossroads Centre located in Antigua.
"Crossroads" is a famous and influential blues-rock song. It has become a blues standard for many blues-rock bands, notably Cream, who released it on their 1968 album Wheels of Fire.
The song was written by Robert Johnson as "Cross Road Blues" with additional lines copied from Johnson's "Traveling Riverside Blues". Musically the motifs in this song owe more to the song Traveling Riverside Blues than they do to Cross Road Blues. Many believe the song is about the original songwriter, Robert Johnson, going to the crossroads to sell his soul to the devil in exchange for being able to play the blues and gain fame. Some historians believe the song is actually about an African-American worried about being lynched for being out after dark in an unfamiliar place of the Deep South in the early 20th century. (See Chapter Eight of Leon F. Litwack, Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow (New York: Vintage Books, 1998), especially pages 410 and 411.)
The iconic live recording was captured at the Winterland Ballroom on the 10 March, 1968 and not at the Fillmore as stated by the original Wheels of Fire album. It has also been suggested that the released recording is a shortened edit from a much longer rendition, but this has been disproved by a separate bootleg audience recording available of the entire night's performance.
Unlike Cream's usual arrangement with bassist Jack Bruce singing, guitarist Eric Clapton took the vocals on this recording. Clapton's extended guitar solos from "Crossroads" cemented his reputation as a guitar legend; his work from the track was named by one critic guitarsolo.html" target="_blank">the greatest live rock solo ever. Bruce's fluid _bass playing, blurring the line between rhythm and melody, has been similarly honored as the second-best live bass performance.
It was placed at #409 on the 2004 List of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
"Tha Crossroads" is a 1996 song performed by the rap group Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, dedicated to the late rap icon Eazy-E. It is one of the group's most popular songs to date, and certainly their biggest selling. Originally named "Crossroad," it wasn't until the group and their producer, DJ U-Neek, decided to remake the song that the name was changed. The song is performed by four of the group's members, (Krayzie Bone, Layzie Bone, Bizzy Bone and Wish Bone), but a remix can be found which includes later addition Flesh-n-Bone. Bone's lightning fast rhymes are delivered softer than is usual for the group (they are almost singing), creating a sad and heartfelt effect. With soft instrumentals revolving around a sample of The Isley Brothers' "Make Me Say It Again Girl (Pts. 1 and 2)," the song has a sad yet quick tone to it. After receiving high praise for their song the group decided to add it to their already launched album, E 1999 Eternal. The single rose to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for 8 weeks, sold over two million copies, and would later win a Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group at the 39th Annual Grammy Awards.
It was also ranked #1 on VH1's best rap songs countdown. The song was covered by Chingford boy band Blazin' Squad in 2002 and went to #1 on the UK Singles Chart.
