As I sit at home on this chilly Monday afternoon, I'm grateful that I had the foresight to take this, the Monday after Christmas, as a vacation day from my day job. I figured I'd be dragging and still recovering from all the holiday chaos of get-togethers with a very large extended family and an enormous group of close, life-long friends. My intention was to lounge around all day and let the house be filled with music.

As I explore the awesome new Donny Hathaway box set I received as a gift this Christmas, I have to be awed by life's ironies. Although I'm an avid Hathaway fan (I consider him one of the very best and most expressive soul singers of all time) I always listen to him with a heavy heart. I always hear the melancholy side of Donny's soaring voice. I always wander into the sadness and depression he was living with throughout his all- t00- short career that sadly ended with his suicide at the tender age of 33 in 1979. And now, I'll have yet another layer of sadness to associate with my love of Mr. Hathaway's music: for it was while I was listening to the sweet yet somber sound of Donny Hathaway's voice emerging from my stereo speakers that the news I'd been hit with last night really affected me.

I was sent a series of text messages from Vinyl Fever staff members who'd just left a mandatory store meeting on Sunday night while I was attending my annual Christmas party with all my closest friends. I was alerted that the announcement had been made by store owner, Lee Wolfson, that the store would be shutting its doors for good in February 2011.