http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWks6QsbEtU

It would be a mistake to remark only on the fact that this man has one of the truest, deepest, most inimitable voices in the history of recorded music—because, watching this video, Howlin Wolf’s entire spirit is on display, in all of its physicality, channeling something only he can. Functionally illiterate at the time of this performance, words come through him as though he’s pulling them from the dirt—root and all—wringing out new sensations, desires that go deeper than we’re able to truly appreciate, a poetry you can marvel at but never own. In his estimation, “Any time you thinkin’ evil, you thinkin’ about the blues.”