Leavell marvels at the thousands of “gifts of the forest,” from timber for homes and churches to
Keith Richards’ guitars and his own maple-and-spruce grand piano.
chuck Leavell represents Mother Nature Network,
an organization he co-founded in 2009, as he
rings the opening bell at the NYSE.
“My children’s book, ‘The Tree Farmer,’
is an attempt to help children learn about
these issues from a very young age,” he
said.
Also, in 2009, he co-founded Mother
Nature Network, which attracts more than
10 million visits a month from more than
200 different countries.
A lifetime of music
c o n t i n u e d f r o m pag e
chuck Leavell has been touring, recording and
singing backup with the rolling stones since
1982. He is Pictured here, on the left, after their
halftime performance at Superbowl XL in 2006.
30
www.gonpta.com
29
a certified forester and learned to repair
the tractor. Along the way, he needed to
understand wildlife, habitats and the bal-
ances of biodiversity.
In Wisconsin, the industries that grew
out of the state’s vast timberlands remain
among the state’s biggest employers,
including logging, furniture, paper mills
and printing.
Not surprisingly, part of Leavell’s con-
version included becoming familiar with
the work of Leopold, whose book “A Sand
County Almanac” was published in 1949
but remains required reading in forestry
schools in Wisconsin and elsewhere.
Leavell still quotes Leopold frequently
in his emails and books. Asked why Leop-
old is so revered, Leavell wrote: “Because
he ‘got it.’ He had a deep understanding of
nature and the incredible way that the big
picture fits together.
“Nature is infinite — and constantly
changing.”
Leavell spreads that message at every
opportunity.
It’s all a jarring contrast to Leavell’s more
glamorous life of swank hotels and pulsat-
ing concerts in sold-out stadiums.
His bandmates, though, are well aware
of his tree obsession. “Oh, God, Chuck’s
talking about trees again,” Keith Rich-
ards once said. And at this month’s show
in Atlanta, Jagger introduced Leavell to
50,000 fans as an “amazing guy who’s a
local tree farmer.”
At 63 and a grandfather, Leavell is
young by Stones standards. Jagger and
Richards are both 71. Charlie Watts is 74.
But Leavell played “Satisfaction” and
“Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown” in his
high school band, which did so well he
never went to college.
He found no end of studio work in
Muscle Shoals, Ala., one of the South’s
recording capitals, and then in Macon, Ga.,
before the Allman Brothers invited him
to join as the numerical replacement for
founder Duane Allman, who died in a 1971
motorcycle crash.
Like each of the other Brothers, he’s
branded with a tattoo of a “magic mush-
room” on his right calf, all from the same
San Francisco tattoo artist.
Leavell’s best-known contribution to the
Allman Brothers is perhaps a bouncy instru-
mental called “Jessica.” Over the years, he’s
played with the Marshall Tucker Band and
Eric Clapton, shared a stage with the Grate-
ful Dead and The Band, and counts the
Grammy Award-winning Train single “Drops
of Jupiter” among his studio work. PW!