I’m driving my Jeep today while eating a chewy health bar from Redding’s Green Tara’s and sipping a coffee - just tooling around town after a rewarding yoga class with Ms. Bernadette Birney. It’s been an unbelievably warm March. Spring has come early here in Connecticut. Bear in mind we’ve been known to get snow in April so this is a weird feeling - it’s positively balmy out. Yesterday was 80 deg. F for example. Anyway, I’m driving down a leafy lane and 2 wild turkeys take flight right across the road in front of me.The wild life is popping out everywhere. I left the garage door open yesterday and two beautiful wild birds were flying around in there obviously looking to build a nest. March Madness.

My steel guitar-playing, tree-surgeon buddy, Chris Davis, sent me an email last week to say that he saw a mountain lion in the very same field that I had told him I’d seen one some 20 years ago. So we’re wondering if it could possibly be the same animal or a relative. To see one of these creatures is a rare and exciting event, even in rural Connecticut. Like bears, it’s magical when you happen across one, though naturally, you’ve got to be extremely cautious.

These wild turkeys got my mind rambling and I was thinking about the old 70s British band Wild Turkey, led by Glenn Cornick who had formerly been Jethro Tull’s original bass player. I’d first seen that band at a little club in Harrow, UK called the Railway Arms. Mick Abrahams was the guitar player in those days and I remember singer, Ian Anderson had this whole tramp/vagrant look going, standing on one leg while playing the flute. Today, I struggle to stand on one leg while doing tree pose (for any of you yogis out there). Oh, to be young again.

The Railway Arms was a tiny place and I remember we’d all sit reverently on chairs and applaud studiously when any of our favorite bands would come to play there. I also remember falling in love with the aptly named Christine Perfect of Stan Webb’s Chicken Shack. Christine later went on to fame and fortune with Fleetwood Mac and indeed Wishbone played some dates with that band at one point. There was this one song that Chicken Shack played. It was called Lonesome Whistle Blues originally penned by Freddie King, which I admit now, was a huge influence / cop for our song Where Were You Tomorrow.

I’m rambling, but that’s my mood today. This morning I attended a short lecture on nutrition and food allergies from Dr. Jason Barker ND. Did you know that 6 million kids in the USA have these food allergies? Those are only the numbers we actually know about. The food we eat is making us sick - you know the Standard American Diet - SAD for short. So, anyway, I’m thinking of getting tested for food allergies. Not that I feel I have major problems - just that food seems to either, rarely satisfy me or simply leaves me feeling uncomfortable. You never know - it could be gluten, soy, wheat, peanuts - who knows? I want to find out what my body can and can’t tolerate.

Did a couple of press interviews with some nice folks this week, in preparation for our USA tour. The dates we have are solid but the last part was going to be the West Coast. Unfortunately the venues are not showing us the love. They want us to take all the financial risk and do door deals and worse ‘to see how it goes’. That’s just simply not an option for a touring band like us. It’s risky out there and you can lose your collective ass.

Talking of SAD - our local, most favorite music venue the Georgetown Saloon, is closing its doors and the newish owner of 7 years is declaring bankruptcy. Back in the day, this place rocked, with it’s open mic nights and special shows. Wishbone certainly played warm-up dates there and in the 70’s the original band would hang out in the Saloon on many a rowdy night. Keith Richards, Jose Feliciano, Richie Blackmore, Dustin Hoffman, Harry Connick Jnr and many other local celebs have all stopped by at one time or another. Original owner Adam Lubarsky, himself a bit of a local hero, was said to be particularly sad about the place’s demise. It’s simply a sign of the times. These PC times are simply having their impact on live venues. You can’t smoke or drink & drive of course, so folks our age just don’t go out as much. I can understand why a lot of artists play house concerts these days. Hmmm ..... now there’s an idea.

On a brighter note; we have an otherwise full date sheet, thank the gods and we’re off to France next week for a couple of dates there and we’ll be revisiting some of our old haunts on the US tour before gearing up for some summer festivals in Europe. It may well be that the creative juices will bear fruit to a few new recordings this summer, if we can all get together on the same continent for long enough to jam a little.

On a final feel-good note, Pauline and I are just getting used to becoming grandparents for the second time to our beautiful Elodie Claire. Welcome into the world young lady - you bring us much joy.

~ A.P.

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