Crossroads: Southern Routes is a collection of various genres of music from the American South. In his notes, Smithsonian Folkways director Tony Seeger talks about the contrast between the interstate highways that cut across the South and southern routes, which lead into small towns, each with its own history and culture. The cover reflects this by juxtaposing a graphic, symbolic image of the interstate—printed with black only (a budget limitation) under a clear yellow tray— with a vintage photograph of a dirt road in Texas, retouched to show the album title. The disk label displays the artists’ home towns on a map of the South, showing the density of the region’s musical traditions.