{"id":106323,"date":"2025-12-05T00:34:28","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T05:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/?p=106323"},"modified":"2026-01-20T21:29:45","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T02:29:45","slug":"is-albert-king-the-source-of-claptons-crossroads-riff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/?p=106323","title":{"rendered":"Is Albert King The Source of Clapton&#8217;s Crossroads Riff?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Who knows Albert King&#8217;s music really well and can help me answer this question?  <\/p>\n<p>Cream&#8217;s 1968 version of Crossroads uses  the identical  riff that Albert King uses in the tune For The Love of a Woman (except for the last bars) which he first recored in 1971 for the album Lovejoy. <\/p>\n<p>I can&#8217;t find an earlier version of that tune. But considering how often Clapton borrowed riffs and solos from King I  would be surprised if King took a riff from Clapton rather the other way around.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not unusual for bluesmen to reuse a riff in different tunes. <\/p>\n<p>So does anyone know an earlier Albert King recording  that uses this riff.  <\/p>\n<p>(There is just a hint of the riff in both of Johnson&#8217;s recording of Crossroads. But his accompaniment is far more complicated, varied and subtle than the King \/ Riff.  )<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Who knows Albert King&#8217;s music really well and can help me answer this question? Cream&#8217;s 1968 version of Crossroads uses the identical riff that Albert King uses in the tune For The Love of a Woman (except for the last bars) which he first recored in 1971 for the album Lovejoy. I can&#8217;t find an earlier version of that tune. But considering how often Clapton borrowed riffs and solos from King I would be surprised if King took a riff from Clapton rather the other way around. It&#8217;s not unusual for bluesmen to reuse a riff in different tunes. So does anyone know an earlier Albert King recording that uses this riff. (There is just a hint of the riff in both of Johnson&#8217;s recording of Crossroads. But his accompaniment is far more complicated, varied and subtle than the King \/ Riff. ) <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/?p=106323\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1896,"featured_media":115788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Screenshot-2026-01-20-at-9.28.52\u202fPM.png?fit=874%2C500&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p35YuU-rET","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106323"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1896"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=106323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115789,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106323\/revisions\/115789"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/115788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=106323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=106323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=106323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}