"I’m a wizard; I don’t play music and I don’t sing," says maverick blues singer Willis Earl Beal in today’s meditative profile of the musician. "I’m a sorcerer; I put it out there and it happens." If Beal doesn’t sound like your average musician, it's because he isn’t.

Before signing a record deal in 2011 with XL offshoot Hot Charity, the singer had already achieved cult status around his hometown of Chicago for the hand-drawn flyers he would post around the city, which promised that he would sing a song if you called him. By a happy coincidence, LA-based film collective Yours Truly captured such a moment while filming Beal in the ramshackle house he shares with his grandmother in Chicago’s South Side, the sight of Beal singing passionately into his iPhone offering a unique insight into the passion and disarming candor of the acclaimed singer.

"I was really just drawn to his voice, his power, and his presence," says Yours Truly’s William Abramson of the first time he heard Beal. “I love the blues and I felt like he was living in the wrong era; he belonged back in the days of Blind Lemon Jefferson." 

The inspiriting film is part of NOWNESS's new series Directors’ Cuts, which showcases uncut and unseen work by our favorite contributors. Here, Abramson shares Yours Truly's plans for 2015.

What do you consider to be this year’s greatest achievement?
William Abramson: The thing we worked the hardest on was probably a party we threw for Ray-Ban in London. We transformed Shoreditch Town Hall into an immersive world of theatre, music, food, drink, dance, and... a little nudity. Thirty actors, 120 staff, six bars, a kitchen, a cinema, and performances from Gessafelstein, AlunaGeorge, Movement, Lianne La Havas, Moses Sumney, Nick Hakim and Hypnotic Brass Ensemble.

Who is your idea of a modern-day revolutionary?
WA: I often say that my worldview is really small. I read the news, but what I really love to see is artists (musicians) making real change. Chance the Rapper is someone we've had the pleasure of working with, and seeing Chance re-write the rules of the record business was really exciting. He's the only rapper/artist with that high a profile who has never signed to a label, and probably never will. I'm excited to see him lead a new generation of artists by example. Your art is your own. 

First film to leave an imprint on you? And where were you when you watched it?
WA: Maybe Edward Scissorhands. My Dad took my sister and me to the movies; it might have been one of the first times I saw a movie in a theatre. The movie scared the shit out of me! But I couldn't get enough of the score. I remember very vividly closing my eyes in fear and listening to the score to soothe my nerves.  

What film would you make required-watching for everyone you know?
WA: The Big Lebowski. 

Who would play you in a film about your life?
WA: Bart Simpson.

The film you wish you made?
WA: Beginners, Let's Get Lost, SLC Punk!, Sling Blade. 

Check back tomorrow for a Directors' Cut from Matthew Donaldson.