As a kind of post-script to the moments of “suasion” that occurred in October, you have this absolutely stellar song from George Duke. While Duke is someone I’ve always appreciated, I haven’t really spent a lot of time with his catalog (my tastes have always tended to focus on Pre-1977/Post-1987 sounds with Jazz & Soul for reasons that are both clear and unclear to me personally). As I left the first day of the DJ Shadow storage sale at Rappcats, having sated my appetite for dusty vinyl, I found myself hungry for actual food. Being in Highland Park, I thought I’d swing by one of my favorite spots to get some good grub. I found a parking spot almost exactly across the street from Peanut Butter Wolf’s Goldline Bar, which now has street side speakers, and from those speakers I heard the absolute magic that is “Just For You,” almost exactly after the first verse ended. I almost ran through oncoming traffic to make sure that I found out what the song was. Thankfully, there were still three minutes left in the song and I had plenty of time to safely cross the street, show my ID & Vax card at the door and ask the DJ what they were playing. As I mentioned in previous posts, the serendipity of walking into fantastic music that you’ve never heard before is one of my favorite things of all time. And this song, I don’t really feel like I need to even say anything about this song, if you have or are about to listen to it…You know that joyful little dance you do every time you take a bite of some really good tasting food? This song is the musical equivalent of that feeling, for every second of it’s duration.
Even after all these years as a DJ and collector, I am never not surprised by how much amazing music there is still to discover out there. So thankful that the musical surprises never end, and eternally thankful that on that day my stomach started grumbling at the perfect time for me to hear “Just For You.”
