Chuck Leavell: Musician and Tree Farmer

Most people know Chuck Leavell as the keyboardist for the Rolling Stones. However this well-known artist also has another passion: tree farming.

“I really started gravitating towards forestry for one thing, I realized my instrument that has given me my career has come from the resource of woods so that kind of struck a nerve with me…”

Leavell says both music and tree farming offer opportunities to leave a legacy.

“When you’re recording with these artists you have an opportunity to create recordings that are going to last many, many lifetimes. And when you’re managing a forest you have the same opportunity. You can plant seedlings today that are going to be this big that someday 75, 100, 150 years or even more are still going to be here.”

His wife’s interest is in saving the land and that’s how Leavell initially took an interest in forestry. His mantra is simple: leave the land in better shape than you found it.

“Trees and forests give us so many incredible things, they give us materials to build our homes and our schools and our churches. They give us materials to make books and magazines and newspapers. There are some five thousand products that we used in our everyday lives that has some element of trees in it.”

Leavell says as far as he’s concerned he’s just a country boy who loves living in Twiggs County.