72
Understanding Rock
the added drums and bass.36 In the verses, bass player Bruce reiterates the basic riff and adds running lines in a constant and complex counterpoint to Clapton's upper layer in the solo section, and drummer Baker similarly fills in the textural and registral space with varied attacks and timbres from the drum set in the solo section. As is evident in "Crossroads," but even more so in other Cream songs, both Bruce and Baker were innovators, developing and exploring their enhanced roles within the new, improvisatory trio rock format. Bruce simultaneously plays rhythmic and harmonic roles; an accompanimental role, filling in the texture and providing running lines against the lead guitar, and occasionally even a solo role. On the drums, Baker fills in textural and rhythmic spaces in a manner characteristic of jazz trios, where the drums become more elaborate when the soloist improvises and the instrumental texture thins out. Arguably, the most significant aspect of Cream's adaptation, and perhaps of the transformation from blues to rock in general, is in the basic rhythm. In Johnson's solo blues style as realized in his "Cross Road Blues," meter itself is a compositional and performance device which comes in and out of focus in response to the fluid rhythms and changing accents in the lower-level beats. The irregular groupings extend to smaller beat divisions, with an interplay between triplet "swing" and duple divisions of the beat (as shown in ex. 3.1). In Cream's rock version, an unwavering duple meter is a maintained in a duple 4/4 rock beat with straight eighth notes.37 The added drums and bass emphasize and stabilize the meter, with beats stressed equally; offbeats, especially within the repeating riffs, are thereby strongly syncopated in relation to the driving, accented beat. Listening to Johnson's "Cross Road Blues" and then to Cream's "Crossroads" is an extraordinary musical experience, even aside from the historical context of the parallel Faustian reputation that links Johnson and Clapton. Johnson's irregular rhythms and variation in the support for a firm metric beat suggest a more personal, idiosyncratic vision, particularly in the ambiguous setting of the "clincher" third line of each verse of the text, where the rhythmic and harmonic momentum is dissipated rather than reinforced (ex. 3.2). By contrast, Cream's "Crossroads" is driving and powerful, with a relentless reinforcement, then turnaround, of harmonies that assimilates the third line of text within the inexorable forward motion and progression of the meter, suggesting the communal, overdriven state of society that surrounded Cream in the 1960s. Before leaving "Crossroads," however, it must be noted that Johnson himself allowed for alternative interpretations of the song in his own two versions and in the other songs that share the basic tonal and formal materials of "Cross Road Blues." One such song, "Terraplane Blues"—Johnson's most popular release—in particular, is regular throughout in both form and meter, maintaining the twelvebar structure and building up momentum through the consistent reinforcement of the four-beat measures. The fourth verse of the song even reduces the accompaniment to a characteristic recurring four-note upbeat riff (notes A—B#-C#-E) of the kind described by Clapton as essential for his vision of "Crossroads" as a "rock and roll vehicle." As numerous writers have observed, Johnson's many different playing styles both summarized those of his predecessors and anticipated those of his descendents.