I’ll spare you the intro. We all know why this is up here today. This time last year SBR was just as shocked and dumb founded as the rest of the world. You didn’t have to have been a music aficionado or even just a passive listener to have been touched by the brilliance of this man.
I feel like every website in the universe will have a whole retrospect, reactions from friends, reactions from people that don’t know anything more about him than me, and people who wanna act like they knew him personally. But none of that matters at all. The bottom line is that you didn’t need to “know” him… it was something that special.
I know I am not alone with this one experience I am about to recount – I heard from a lot of people they had the same thing happen to them. One of the most memorable experiences of my life was spending that late afternoon after he died looking out my front bay window at the passing traffic. I live right off Haight St. on a bustling commuter path for pedestrians, bikers, and cars. Soon after the news broke, every few seconds a car would drive by blasting a MJ tune. People on bikes, people walking, people on stoops – they would start singing along. People were waving at each other giving whoops of appreciation. It’s pretty rare you see people acknowledge each other at all on that street. This day it was the norm.
I’ll just share one video and one edit in commemoration. The below video Clayton from WGL sent me a few minutes after the news broke and I watch it monthly ever since. The edit comes courtesy of Think 2wice Records artist Potions. We have been playing it regularly for the last year.
Be good to each other.
Download The Potions edit of “Rock With You” (Mediafire – 320 mp3)
