Print Works! Print Works! Fall 2015 | Page 30

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!