(FORTUNE Magazine) – Lonnie Mack is best known for his one hit--an instrumental version of Chuck Berry's "Memphis" that appeared in 1963. That led to his first album, The Wham of That Memphis Man, on which "Why" originally appeared in 1963. This is Southern roadhouse music, music of sweat and beer and gravel parking lots. Lonnie Mack is the guitar hero of the tradition; he has influenced everyone from Eric Clapton to Stevie Ray Vaughan. But he's a great roadhouse singer too, and that's a style that has almost faded away.

"St. James Infirmary" is the clear antecedent for "Why." The two songs have the same stately measure and give the singer the same opportunity to rise to almost operatic passion. His woman has left him. "Why?" Mack wails, transforming it into a word of three syllables. "Why-y-y?" It's sweaty slow-dance stuff, with an organ intro, a stinging guitar solo, and, after the last emotional chorus, four simple notes on the guitar as a coda. There's no sadder, dustier, beerier song in all of rock.

--Gregory Curtis