Written by Doug Oster on Sunday, 14 June 2015
Chuck Leavell is keyboardist and musical director for The Rolling Stones.

When the Rolling Stones come to Heinz Field on Saturday, [June 20] fans will focus on lead singer Mick Jagger. But the musicians will be watching keyboardist and musical director Chuck Leavell.
Mr. Leavell will be focused on the music, though his mind may occasionally wander to another place -- the woods.
“Trees and parks are the most precious type of resource we have,” he said in a phone interview. “They clean our air, they clean our water and let’s not forget they’re natural, organic and renewable.”

His musical career came first. Mr. Leavell began touring as a teenager. In 1972, at 20, he joined the Allman Brothers Band, playing on many of their greatest hits. He formed the jazz fusion band Sea Level and played with some of the greatest musicians of our time, including George Harrison and Eric Clapton. He’s also released six solo albums.
But in 1981, while on the road with the Fabulous Thunderbirds, his life took a turn.

He and his wife Rose Lane inherited 2,900 acres in Atlanta when her grandmother passed away. They looked at many options for the land and decided sustainable forestry would be its best use. Mr. Leavell studied hard between gigs, completing a correspondence course from the Forest Landowners Association and Georgia Extension Service so he could properly manage the plantation, which became Charlane Plantation.

A year later, Mr. Leavell became a member of the Rolling Stones and has been touring and recording with the band ever since. His love of the land goes back to childhood, growing up on 8 acres in Montgomery, Ala., where his father plowed the garden behind horses.
“I just remember how beautiful it was living in the country -- how dark the sky was at night and how bright the stars were.”
Summer days seemed endless as he would go down to the creek and play with his sister. “That feeling of being close to nature just stuck with me all through the years.”
Mr. Leavell is also a prolific author, writing “Forever Green: The History and Hope of the American Forest;” his autobiography, “Between a Rock and a Home Place,” “Growing a Better America” and a best-selling children’s book, “The Tree Farmer.” The book was inspired by Richard Louv’s “Last Child in the Woods” and tells the touching story of a tree farming grandfather taking his grandson on a journey of discovery through the forest.
“There is a disconnect with children and nature,” Mr. Leavell says.
In 2009, he co-founded the environmental website Mother Nature Network with Joel Babbit.
“We did it mainly because we saw there was a void of really good information concerning all things environmental,” he says.
WebMD was their model. He wanted a site that was “all-encompassing, easy to understand, easy to navigate, accurate and non-political.” The site receives 8 million visits per month and continues to grow.
Since the release of his first book, Mr. Leavell has become an outspoken advocate for the environment. “We need to be focusing on renewable energy -- solar, wind, electric and hybrid vehicles.
“Growing a Better America” offers ideas for smartly managing growth and development here and abroad.
“We have 320 million people in this country alone and that’s just such a tremendous amount of pressure on all of our natural resources,” he says, using Charlane Plantation as an example.
“We want to make sure we are planting, managing and growing more trees than we’re harvesting.”
It’s his part in a much larger effort that affects everyone, he says
“Growth is an issue that’s not going away.”If we don’t answer that wake-up call now, we’re going to be in trouble.”