Howdy Folks,

I wish to send holiday greetings out to all of you, my fans and friends. It's getting chilly round here! Time for hot fires in the fireplace, hot soup, lots of music .... always lots of music, friends and family. ... and of course the cats and dogs too (included in family)

2005 has been crazy so far!!! .... Can I slow down now????

I have kept busy, busy, busy ... thus it took a while to get back to writing another note to you. Steve Miller hit the road again this year so I had my performances split between my band "The Knockouts", my duet with Roy "Norton Buffalo & Roy Rogers", my acoustic trio "Norton & Friends", and "The Steve Miller Band", as well as a one night performance in Kansas City, as special guest with "The Doobie Brothers". On top of all of that busy-ness, Lisa and I moved from the Valley Of The Moon back in May. We found ourselves up in a small town in the California foothills. We are now a little more out in the country than before, ... a beautiful place to inspire new music!!! It has made for a much longer commute when I have to come to the Bay Area. We miss all of our Sonoma County friends and family ... and have been making visits back from time to time to stay in touch. Meanwhile we are working on getting situated in our new home. The chaos of moving made for a bit more nutty year than usual.

We had a great time up in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho back on October 1, when we filmed and recorded a live performance of "An Evening With Norton Buffalo" featuring Norton & Friends and Norton & The Knockouts. The performance was at a great theater at North Idaho College (Schuler Auditorium). I wish to thank my good friend Jack Purdie and all of those from NIC for helping make that happen, as well, I wish to thank my crew, Recording engineer, Pete Carlson, Front of House engineer, Danny "Happy" Reed, Driver, good buddy, stage hand and personal video camera operator, Michael Harvey, Video Director Philippe Valle, Justin, and all of the others that worked hard on this show. I especially want to thank my musicians who together all put on a wonderful evening of music. Without them I'm afraid I would be terribly boring.

We are still making progress on the re-release of my Capitol recordings from the 70s ... still no release date. I will keep you posted here on the website

This always seems to be the time (it is always time) to take a few moments out of our hectic lives to send prayers out for those suffering, for those who have passed on and especially for those on all sides of the conflicts that seem to be consuming the world.

Between Natural disasters like the earthquake and tsunami in the far East, the earthquake in the Middle East, the hurricanes and tornadoes of the South Eastern United States, the war in Iraq, the continuing hostilities in Israel, the ongoing conflicts in Columbia, and the terrible wars and diseases that are affecting so many people in Africa. It seems that all around the world there is conflict, sadness, pain and suffering.

We here in America are so blessed by our freedoms, (even though I feel that in the past few years that many of our freedoms have being taken away right under our noses) For those of us who are more fortunate, we must step up and reach out our helping hand to those less fortunate who we can help. Donating to organizations that are helping others especially in the Gulf states, or directly to those in need as so many of us know someone who has been touched by the ravaging effects of these hurricanes.

We should all, as well, contact our Senators, Congressional representatives, The President and his administration, to tell them how we as citizens want them to lead this country and how we want them to spend our tax dollars. They need to hear from us all to make democracy work.

Whether for or against the war in Iraq, one would have to be blind to not recognise that it is affecting the everyday lives of millions of people in this tiny country far away. Families have been destroyed, women, elderly and children and many others who are innocent of any crime against anyone are being caught in the middle of this conflict and injured, killed or otherwise affected each and every day by the ravages of this war. Please keep them all in your prayers. These people, like us, only wish to live in peace and to have normalcy return to their everyday lives and their families.

The men and women of our nation and other nations who are serving in this conflict need our prayers as well. So many of us have children, brothers, sisters, friends and loved ones that have been sent into the midst of harms way in the name of freedom. I believe that we can best support them by getting them all home as soon as we can. Many families are suffering from having lost loved ones, reach out to them and give them support in any way you can.

Keep all of these people in our daily thought and prayers and let us do what we can to help make this world a place where people are being cared for and loved ... Where war is not considered an option. I may just be an old hippie who still hasn't given up on the concept of One World, One Love. I believe that dreaming this and becoming active to engage our neighbors and our nation to do the same will make our world a safer more wonderful place for all of the world's children, children's children and on and on.