Music is one of the great unifiers of our world. While you might be able to find one of those rare creatures who “isn’t a music fan,” you would be hard-pressed to find someone who actively dislikes it. Music is the thing that allows me to relate to people and not feel alien around them.
Southwest Sound has been a major defining part of my life since I was 13 years old. I don’t know how many of you remember back then, but my long-haired and gangly frame used to sit behind the counter stamping bags with our logo while just listening. Listening to the stories that each person who came in told, listening to the songs we chose to rotate for the day, listening to my dad tell stories of the glory days, when there could be a music store that was three stories tall. It instilled in me an awe and respect for how music can bring people – people who have little to nothing else in common – together to appreciate something for just a moment.
That is a feeling that I will always carry with me, and I hope that by coming into our shop you were able to feel that as well. It has been a most beautiful time.
Thank you to David, Angelica, Patty, and the rest of the old and new DGO crew for letting me ramble this past year and change.
Thank you to you, for reading these and coming in and talking to me about whatever pop album I decided to write about that week. It never got old.
Thank you to Dan, Billy, Clay, Stacia, Kyl, Travis, Stacy, Emma, Josh, Holly, and all the rest of the wonderful people I worked with at the record store. I hope your time there was as enriching for you as it was for me.
And, thank you to my dad, Robert Stapleton, for giving me a lifelong passion, a crippling addiction to wax, and so many stories that I will never run out of things to talk about.
Thank you Southwest Sound for being the best place in the goddamned world. You will be missed.
Southwest Sound. Know Music Know Life.
— Cooper Stapleton(Ed. note: Southwest Sound’s doors will be open until July 13. Make sure you stop in and say your goodbyes, and while you’re there, snag some music. Thanks for everything, Southwest Sound.)
