Dear Mr. Fantasy

with Dave Mason and Joe Bonamassa

A co-founder of the legendary band Traffic, Dave Mason’s musical path started strong and only grew more significant over time. In addition to his renowned work as a revered guitar player and singer-songwriter (who penned “Feelin’ Alright,” one of rock’s most-covered anthems, when he was only 21), Mason has appeared on some of the most acclaimed recordings in music history, including The Spencer Davis Group’s “Gimme Some Lovin,’” George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass album, The Rolling Stones’ “Street Fighting Mam” and close friend Jimi Hendrix’s classic “All Along the Watchtower.” After leaving Traffic, Dave’s popularity exploded with the release of his debut solo album, Alone Together, igniting one of the most successful careers of the 1970s—marked by sell-out performances at Madison Square Garden and requests from artists such as Paul McCartney, who recruited Dave to play guitar on Wings’ #1 hit “Listen to What the Man Said.”

But the triumphs didn’t come without hurdles. By the mid-1970s, cocaine and a seemingly endless touring schedule began to take their toll. Workmanlike in his dedication, however, the determined craftsman never gave up. Here, for the first time, Dave shares some of the great untold tales in rock and roll—his relationship with Traffic, his wild legal episodes with record companies, his tenure in Fleetwood Mac, his battle with addiction and the loss of a child, and his eventual induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. He dives deep on the music, from “World in Changes” to “We Just Disagree,” and shares inside stories featuring a cast of characters that includes Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Cass Elliot, Delaney and Bonnie, Eric Clapton, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

Dave Mason’s reputation as a “quiet giant” has long been one of music’s great mysteries. Now, one of rock’s true heroes finally shares his colorful, unique, and ultimately triumphant journey through a life in music.

What started as a way for seasoned yoga teacher Winifred Wilson to see the country – and to grow closer to the man she’d called her partner for a decade – turned into the most unexpected trip of all. A profound voyage within, and the surrender of everything she once deemed true, necessary, and valuable.

Downdogs for Roaddogs: Yoga for Rock-and-Roll Tours (And Other Cosmic Journeys of the Heart) is the result of her life-changing excursion, In each of the book’s fourteen essays, a virtue alchemized from theory to practice while out on the wide, open road of America. Each piece is paired with an archetypal rock-and-roll song and the specific pose that allowed her to feel, and exemplify, these qualities. Ranging from Vulnerability to Forgiveness to Surrender—and shifting from “Feelin’ Alright” to “Landslide” to “The Sound of Silence”—each essay operates as a blend of yoga philosophy, rock lore, autobiography, and asana, and cover an array of eminently relatable issues, including addiction, divorce, aging, money, co-dependency, and perfectionism. At the crux of each essay lies a lesson on how we can find ease and contentment when the ground beneath us is constantly moving. 

Downdogs for Roaddogs: Yoga for Rock-and-Roll Tours (And Other Cosmic Journeys of the Heart) is built for the busy, modern reader, allowing people to pick and choose essays that might resonate with them at a certain time, or to read the narrative from start to finish. 

Whatever the reader elects, she’s bound to leave Downdog for Roaddogs that much wiser, buoyant, and enlivened—and that much closer to realizing that how we are loving is how we are living.