accessAtlanta is your weekly podcast about things to do in and around Atlanta and beyond. This week, we’ll visit with Chuck Leavell. As the de facto music director of The Rolling Stones during the last 40 years of touring, Georgian Leavell not only handled keyboard duties, he frequently took charge of the music on stage, as […]
A nice fellow named Don Wilner pointed out to me that today, Oct 26, 2021, marks the 40th Anniversary of my first appearance on stage with the Rolling Stones. It was Oct. 26th, 1981 in an unannounced show at the Fox Theater in Atlanta. I believe the tickets read “The Cockroaches”. I had auditioned for […]
Concert featuring Robert McDuffie, Mike Mills, Chuck Leavell and Mercer’s McDuffie Center for Strings to be Taped for Distribution to PBS Stations Across America MACON – Tickets for A Night of Georgia Music, a March 5, 2022, concert at Macon’s historic Grand Opera House featuring students from Mercer University’s Robert McDuffie Center for Strings, internationally renowned […]
An hour-long virtual concert to raise funds for Grady Memorial Hospital is airing on WSB-TV Sunday at 7 p.m. featuring Atlanta staples such as the Black Crowes, the Indigo Girls and Cee Lo Green. The event will also be available on the website of WSB-TV, a major sponsor.The concert is called Music Heals: A Celebration of Grady and […]
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – With only the drum track to “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” reverberating through the stadium, four video panels lit up with images of Charlie Watts. Sometimes smiling, sometimes stoic, but always playing drums with his idiosyncratic touch, the opening tribute to the recently deceased Rolling Stones mainstay smoothly set the tone for the next two-plus […]
Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ron Wood kicked off the second leg of the No Filter tour in St. Louis last week, with an emotional dedication to Charlie Watts.Lifting a toast to the imperturbable heartbeat of the band, Jagger said “Here’s to you Charlie.”Then the Stones did what they’ve been doing since the middle of the […]
PITTSBURGH — Their previous Pittsburgh performances in six different decades by all accounts achieved greatness, so why would decade number seven bring anything different? Indeed, the Rolling Stones’ return to Heinz Field on Monday found the long-touted World’s Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Band doing what it’s always done; performing at an exceptional level, and with enthusiasm, drawing from a song catalog as classic as it gets. Mick Jagger […]
Chuck Leavell is a pianist and keyboard player whose career has included tenures as a member of the Allman Brothers Band and Sea Level and as a backup musician for many other acts, among them Dr. John, the Rolling Stones, George Harrison, and Eric Clapton. He is also a Georgia timber farmer and environmental activist. In 2004 he was […]
Due to a strange series of events, David Peck says he owes his career to The Rolling Stones and drummer Charlie Watts, who died Tuesday at age 80. They first met backstage at the memorable Rolling Stones concert at Jack Murphy Stadium on Feb. 3, 1998. Peck was sitting in the third row when a […]
“Just like I consider myself a student of the piano, I consider myself a student of the environment and of forestry in particular,” observes Chuck Leavell, who is the subject of the new documentary film, The Tree-Man. The title originates from Leavell’s stewardship of over 2,500 acres of land at his Charlane Plantation in Twiggs County, Ga. […]