When Chuck Leavell isn’t playing the sideman to The Greatest Rock ‘N’ Roll Show On Earth as keys player for the Rolling Stones, his life is tranquil and quiet. It’s rooted in the thousands of trees that surround his home on the Charlane Plantation near Macon, Ga. – the same trees that inspired his most recently acquired profession: children’s book author.
Leavell and his wife of 32 years, Rose Lane, are tree farmers. She inherited the land that is now Charlane Plantation from her grandmother in 1981, eight years after they were married. (Charlane is their own creation, a mixture of his name, Charles, and hers, Lane.) They soon decided, after loads of self-education, that a lifetime of stewardship was the hot ticket for their future.
“Her family’s been connected to the land for generations,” Leavell said recently before a Stones show in San Diego. “All this began to rub off on me … and the concept of planting trees and trying to carry out sound forest practices and promote environmental issues is what we went with.”
Leavell hit the library in search of books on land use and talked with other tree farmers and landowners. He consulted government sources and checked in with the Georgia Forestry Association and took correspondence courses, although it’s here where you have to remember Leavell’s bread and butter. He has played keyboards for the Stones for more than 20 years – on records, including the band’s latest, “A Bigger Bang,” and on tour, including the band’s current jaunt stopping at the Pepsi Center on Thursday – and aside from being called “the sixth Rolling Stone,” he’s also played with Eric Clapton, George Harrison and the Allman Brothers Band.
So when Leavell was taking these correspondence courses, they really were based in correspondence – from the road.
“It was the mid-’80s, and I was on tour with the Fabulous Thunderbirds, doing homework on the bus and at shows,” said Leavell. “The course was great for getting the meat of the situation, and by the time the course and the tour were over, I couldn’t wait to get back on the land and apply the knowledge I’d taken in.”
His tree farming had more of an impact on his decision to write a children’s book than his rocking. He’d already written “Forever Green: The History and Hope of the American Forest,” a tome that toes the conservative line between extreme environmentalists and forest-consuming corporations. And in a way, “The Tree Farmer,” the children’s book Leavell co-wrote with Nicholas Cravotta, is “Forever Green” for children.
“I wrote that first book, ‘Forever Green,’ aimed at the adults to try and help clear up some misconceptions and misunderstandings about forests in our country,” Leavell said. “And after that had circulated for a year or two, I began to think about a children’s book to reach the young minds, to get the messages out there.”
In “The Tree Farmer,” which was illustrated by silk artist Rebecca Bleau from pictures of the Charlane Plantation, a child challenges his grandfather for lovingly raising entire forests only to cut them down years later.
As the child questions his grandfather’s intentions, “Grandfather reaches out for the nearest tree,” the book reads. “‘This tree,’ he says as he runs his old fingers over its rough bark, ‘I planted it 37 years ago. It touched my soul to stand in its shadow. After today, it will touch souls in a completely different way.”
He goes on to talk about lumber’s many uses. A baby’s crib. A house. A baseball bat. A paper airplane. A newspaper. A piano. A violin. A cello. A guitar. And a series of drums.
“I didn’t ever think about stuff like that until I became a tree farmer,” said Leavell, who naturally brought music into the folds of “The Tree Farmer.” “The perfect example is, if you ask kids where milk comes from, they say, ‘The corner store.’ I never thought about pianos coming from wood, guitars and drums coming from wood, until I became a tree farmer. There are some 5,000 products that come from the resource of wood. A lot of people say that it would be better if we built our houses out of something else other than wood, and then we wouldn’t have to harvest forests. But no, that’s (wrong). Making aluminum and steel wouldn’t be good for the Earth. This resource is organic, it’s sustainable, and when you use it, it grows back. And those are the kinds of things that a lot of people overlook.”
“The Tree Farmer,” like Leavell’s biography, “Between Rock and a Home Place,” was a project to consume the downtime involved with a goliath tour the size of the one he’s on right now. His biography and solo record “Southscape” came out of his last tour with the Stones, and he wrapped the children’s book while rehearsing for this tour in Toronto.
As the band works its way East from California this week, Leavell is spending his time learning the mandolin. “I’m fascinated by it,” he said. “It’s a nice, small instrument, and it travels easily.” Obviously, the rock ‘n’ roller/tree farmer lifestyle is working just fine for him.
“That’s a perfect balance, man,” he said. “I can’t say how cool it is. It really freaks me out. We keep doing it, it keeps getting better, and it’s still fun … Touring, you’re out here with the Rolling Stones, big cities, big crowds and there’s an electric buzz going on constantly. I get to go home on Charlane Plantation and walk out into the woods and hear birds and see deer and hear the wind through the pines, and that psychological and physical balance is very important to me.”
Pop music critic Ricardo Baca can be reached at 303-820-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com.
The Tree Farmer
By Chuck Leavell
VSP Books, 32 pages, $16.95
