When I heard the legend of blues man Robert Johnson going to the crossroads at midnight to make a deal with The Devil, somehow I got the idea that the crossroads themselves would be barren and desolate, shrouded in darkness.

So I never figured that Mr. Johnson could stop in right after his meeting and enjoy some tasty barbecue.

Robert Johnson made a deal with the devil to play his guitar wickedly, so the tale goes. The consensus seems to have it that the deal went down at the intersections of 49 and 61, sometime in the early 1930s.

Almost every retelling of this legend fancifully portayed this junction as out in the middle of nowhere.

In fact, this intersection is in the town of Clarksdale, Mississippi,and the town set up a memorial right on the intersection itself.

The intersection is home to Abe's Bar-Be-Que, which claims to have been in business, presumably at this location, since 1924. So Abe's had been slinging the pork about 10 years before Johnson made that most Faustian of bargains.

It was good barbecue too. And they served the pecan pie warm.