Dusty Groove

As I watched the official trailer for the documentary Dusty Groove – The Sound of Transition from Petunia Productions, I thought to myself, “this is what it’s all about”. There’s a line in the trailer that says, “Records are physical things that circulate – that people bring into their homes.”

I had a similar thought just the day before. My sister, who has had a lifetime love for Joni Mitchell’s music, prompted me to begin my “Joni Mitchell education”. I picked up a used copy of Court and Spark, and while I sat there with the gatefold cover opened to the lyrics, it occurred to me I was holding an album that has either been in someone else’s possession since 1974 or passed through a few hands before finding its way to me, where it will stay until I’m gone. The record sat in a collection while its owners watched the first airing of Saturday Night Live or prepared to go out to the local disco. It could have been in New York, Topeka, or Denver. Now it is in Rochester, NH.

I say all this because this same love for music, vinyl, and CDs fuels the passions of the owner, and the customers, of Dusty Groove in Chicago, Illinois.

The store itself is unassuming, located on the corner of N Ashland & W Haddon Avenues. Inside is where a record lover can lose themselves for a few hours.

“It’s very important to us to be offering an interesting supply of music that keeps opening up ears and introducing people to new sounds and cultures they might not have discovered otherwise,” the store’s owner Rick Wojcik explains. “We’re very diverse musical listeners ourselves — and we’re proud to be offering that level of diversity to our customers.”

That diversity can be found in Dusty Groove’s extensive offering of jazz, soul, hip hop, and basically every genre under the sun.

“We add hundreds of new titles to the store every day, sell hundreds more, and keep things turning over at a level that keeps music customers coming back on a regular basis,” Wojcik says.

By coming back, Wojcik doesn’t only mean to their physical location in Chicago. Dusty Groove has enjoyed a successful online presence since 1996. It first opened its virtual doors and remained virtual as “Dusty Groove America” until cutting the ribbon on a physical store at its current location in 2001. As Wojcik explains, it was “a process that took a few years of us slowly opening the doors once a month, then once a week, then finally having full-time hours a little over 20 years ago.”

It is a testament to the store, its mission, and the joy they provide to their customers that has kept its doors open for a quarter-century. “We meet so many great people and look at so many great collections — and after 25 years, there’s still so much excitement in what we do. We really never know what’s around the corner next.”

It’s hard to say what’s around that corner. Had you said in 1996, a time when CD was king, that vinyl would once again overtake it in sales almost thirty years later, many would have scoffed. It’s a safe bet that vinyl will continue to find its way into the hands and hearts of music lovers. 

That long, continuous, and magical dusty groove is here to stay.