Cross Road Blues, commonly known as Crossroads, is a blues song written by Robert Johnson, who composed both the music and the words. He recorded two takes on 27 November 1936 at the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio for ARC, with producer Don Law. The first take was issued on a 78 rpm Vocalion single in May 1937, backed with Ramblin' on My Mind, and the second appeared in 1961 on King of the Delta Blues Singers. Johnson performed it solo, singing and playing acoustic slide guitar in open G tuning in the Delta blues style. The form is not a fixed twelve-bar blues: its verses run to fourteen or fifteen bars, with an implied harmony.
Elmore James recorded it as Standing at the Crossroads in 1954 and again in 1960-61. Eric Clapton adapted it for Eric Clapton and the Powerhouse in 1966, under the title Crossroads. Cream's live version from 1968, on Wheels of Fire, became one of the band's best-known songs and inspired many covers. Clapton's Crossroads Centre and the Crossroads Guitar Festivals take their name from the song.
