CHUCK LEAVELL and his new take on the Greats of the 88’s….we talk to the Rolling Stones keyboard ace about his new solo album
This week I have been in long-distance time-allowance combat with Mick Jagger – and he has me beaten, fair and square. Because Chuck has been trying to extricate himself briefly from Stones rehearsals in the US to talk to me about his new piano-centric album ‘ Back To The Woods ‘, in which he pays tribute in his own way to some of the players he finds most inspiring. Just as the Horrible Histories books series led youngsters to explore history in more detail, it is clear from a few listens that enjoying this long player would encourage any serious player to dig back and savour the sounds and styles Leavell found fascinating. But here we are on a weekend, where notwithstanding the on-tour birthdays of Wood and Watts his very weekend, a brief breather for the Rolling Stones circus gives Chuck the chance to speak to me from his Chicago hotel. Of course, he’s not staying there under his real name !
Chuck is – especially for an early morning – friendly, courteous and informative, his Southern drawl still clear and his thanks for my interest freely given
JLTT : Well, so you’re in Chicago, Mr Leavell !…
CL: Yes indeed we’ve had two shows here. We just did the second one last night. We have one more to go on Monday. The shows have been outstanding and so much fun. Not only because of the Rolling Stones but the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team are in the final playoffs and that’s a big deal here…so the city was really buzzing about that. They’re just ready to rock and roll… what can I say ?
There are two things about Chicago I heard. Firstly, Sheryl Crow was going play on one of your shows. Did it happen?
Yeah she sang with us last night. ‘She sang All Down the Line’. She was great. Just great.
And the other thing is I’d heard that Marvin Junior of the Dells passed away this week
Oh yeah. Now you are always sad to hear news like that. Gosh, to lose some of the icons that we all love and respect and had learned from and enjoyed in the past. The inevitable always happens. You sure hate to hear about it, though
You sure do. I like this thing Mr Chuck *******., to get to your room… I do get it because you’re the man from the woods aren’t you? The nature man
(Laughs) Well I am. My wife and I are tree farmers. We’ve been doing it, oddly enough for the same amount of time as I’ve been with the Rolling Stones, for thirty one years now.
I thought your alias would be Mr Forest Ranger. I thought that was gonna be your name I’d have to ask for!
Well, oddly enough I used that exact phrase over a year ago, I was given, for me a really true honour and that was the U.S. Forest Service gave me an honorary notation of status. They’d only done it to one other person so it was a real honour
The only other guy I’m aware of from the roots music world who was very concerned of the environment way before his time, is Al Wilson of Canned Heat
Oh yeah!
If you look him up, he was very concerned about the environment and trees. But of course he didn’t live too long, the poor lad
I know he didn’t. Damn sad thing to hear about. But I think there are a lot of us out there that are musicians, artists, actors that lean that way in general. We’re slightly more aware than others about these issues and get involved. I try to be very careful about it…’ that is, I don’t … What I don’t like is when I go to a concert and somebody starts preaching up there
Yeah I know what you mean. It’s like politics isn’t? It’s a dangerous route to go. But certainly, if you talk to, say, the Jefferson Starship crew a lot of these guys are ecologically concerned.
Absolutely. I think that’s a good thing to do put it in a song. But you know when you can’t really start preaching from the stage. When I get off that stage it’s my other life
Now, this album of yours if we can talk about that … I’ve been playing it and it’s gone down very well over here. Golly says to tell you that Blues and Soul Magazine have given it a ‘full marks’ rating, by the way
Wow! – well that’s good to hear
When I heard this album was coming through, given I’m not a piano player I wrote down what I would be thinking of in terms of pioneering piano players. It’s interesting because the people you’ve gone for aren’t necessarily mine. I had Pinetop Perkins, Jimmy Yancey, Count Basie (‘ How Long Blues’ ), Lafayette Leak, Art Tatum, Ray Charles of course… J McShann and Thelonius Monk ( ‘Blue Monk’) And when I looked at your sleeve notes, which are great by the way…
Thank you, Pete
… I thought the keyboard player’s got a different perspective on this. I think Otis Spann was maybe the best I’d ever saw. I don’t know how you chose, and I wonder if there’s gonna be a volume two…
Well first of all, I do appreciate all the names you just mentioned but in my mind names like Jimmy Yancey and some of the others are more in the boogie idiom than they are in the pure blues idiom. So what we did was… by the way this project part came from me part came from my son in law Steve Bransord. Steve is a P.H.D. graduate from university and his discipline is in American History but with a slant in visual arts and roots music
Right..
So…( Laughs).. how cool is that for a son in law?
Not bad !
Steve came to me with this idea and he gave me about three cds with about a hundred and twenty songs on it. And you know, I knew most of the material but there was a lot of the stuff that Steve turned me onto that I was unaware of. So for the first couple or three months I just rode around on my pickup truck on my place playing these three cds and just thinking about it. And thinking, you know, which ones I thought I could interpret. Again, we really wanted to try and stick to the blues idiom and gosh you could have done New Orleans guys…
Yes, a natural..
…you could have done Albert Ammons meets George Lewis, James B Johnson and all of those names. But again, we wanted to look to the others..the Leroy Carrs..– and Little Brother Montgomeries and also find as much as possible some real obscure stuff….
Now that’s interesting ! I was talking to Robben Ford in London and he found some very obscure tracks for his latest record. And he was thinking along the same lines, let’s not give people the stuff they’ve heard to death. Like we don’t need to hear ‘Got My Mojo Workin’ again. I love the fact how what you’ve done here sounds traditional / fresh… Let’s go through the tracks quickly if I may?
Yeah, love to…
‘No Special Rider’ is Little Brother Montgomery isn’t? It’s a very flowing syncopated style, but whose this guy Danny Barnes? He’s a multi-instrumentalist I gather, but he understands your pacing doesn’t he?
Oh yeah. Danny’s an incredible artist. Multi-instrumentalist, he can play guitar, banjo, mandolin, violin, tuba. And Danny’s also a great artist in his own right. If you Google him up, one record in particular that I just adore that he did and that’s rather old now. It’s probably eight or ten years old, it’s called ‘Things That I’ve Done Wrong’.
Right I’ve written that down. I do this. I always take recommendations.
Good. Anyway, Danny is originally from Texas.
OK…
Well, you know he’s a fellow Southerner if you will. He lives in Seattle now. He’s got those roots down there. And when I found out about Danny, eventually met him and he came to my house and we played some. We just forged a friendship. So when this project came up, it was like no doubt I’ve got to get Danny in this.
Yeah. It sounds as though, you yourself migt have picked up a guitar and put the guitar part over your piano. That’s how good it sounds to me.
Yeah. And the tone that he gets, too. He just gets this beautiful tone on the guitar
Talking of tone, we’ve got ‘Evening Train’ by Carr and Keef’s on this playing acoustic guitar. It’s such a porch sound it’s like your just sitting on the porch just relaxing and playing this stuff
I was so delighted to get Keith to do that, how could anyone have done that part better ?
Yeah most definitely the man for that. But obviously, you’ve got the connection. Again it’s a lovely track isn’t?
Well, it’s a wonderful song and I wanted to do my best to do it justice and I thought if I can get Keef, maybe I CAN do it justice! (Laughs) I wanted to do it you know, with an intimate setting. I mean it could have been just the two of us but you know we had to play some drums and some keys. But, an acoustic guitar. I didn’t want an electric guitar on it. I felt acoustic was the way to go.
The next song, ‘Wish Me Well’ is Memphis Slim. When I saw Memphis Slim play live, I’m sure I did but I was very young, I think he was full of stories. Did you ever meet him?
No I didn’t. I’m sure he had some wonderful stories. But fortunately I wanted to pay homage to him cause I think he was one of those early pioneers
Yeah him and Champion Jack.
Yeah, they sure are
Champion Jack, the things they’ve done those guys. Track four ‘Low Down Dirty Dog’ that’s Leroy Carr isn’t it again? There’s an irresistible riff on this. It’s the track where if someone said to me ‘What’s Chuck’s album like?’, I’d probably pick this one and you have to do this when you do the session for Paul Jones and Radio 2 please. It’s a polite request to you. I think you should really think about putting that in the tracks you do for him.
Well thank you. And when you listen to the original of that one, it’s got more of an old timey bounce to it. So I wanted to take it and modernise it a bit. Smooth it out but still keep the essence of it. That was the approach we took and it’s such a cool song. Leroy Carr… what can you say. My son-in-law Steven after we finished this project said ‘Wow we’ve got five Leroy Carr songs on here. Should we consider evening things out a little bit?’ I said to Steven ‘He was such a prolific recording artist. He deserves five songs on the album.’
The other thing is you haven’t just reproduced them. I like Howlin Wolf. When you do Howlin Wolf songs you can’t reproduce them. And I use them as a black and white drawing to colour in with my own pencils….
Exactly. That’s well said. That’s exactly what the approach was for all these characters that we wanted to celebrate
Now the track ‘Losing Hand‘ , we know that from Ray Charles. It’s very hard when you play a Ray Charles song not to play his brittle figures isn’t?
Well yeah. I kept that one phrase that to me sounds like a guitar riff: babaa daa!!
Yeah ..to describe it… Well, it’s crisp, if you like ?
Yes. And actually on the original recording, Ray does it more than on the version I did but I had to put it in there because it’s part of the song. And I wanted to find something so early for him. Because, again, when we came up with this idea we wanted to as much as possible, keep it to the late forties-early thirties. In our opinion, this genre of piano playing was invented during those periods. But, you know, Ray Charles is my true musical hero.. in those cases we jumped far enough forward to find an early version of the recording. It was before Ray got into the whole pop thing. We wanted to capture him in that early blues period.
Gotcha. ‘Naptown Blues’ there’s very stealthy stand-up bass on this. I think Danny’s singing on that one. This is the one that has the most solemn feel to my humble ears. And it’s the sort of thing you hear in a Dr. John set really?
Yeah. You know, I played with Mac early on in my career. I saw him not so long ago. And every time I see Mac it’s just like seeing my hero. I learnt a lot from him. That whole New Orleans thing. And I love the fact that a lot people don’t know what Naptown is. But it’s about Indianapolis That’s a name those guys gave the city. And when we finished this we looked back we said ‘There’s a lot of tributes to cities in this record’. We didn’t think about it so much when we were doing it. But looking back it mentions a lot
Now this song, ‘Boots and Shoes’. It’s Otis Spann I think you’re nodding to there…Basically, I’ve done this song a number of times. It’s ‘Down in the Bottom’ isn’t it, by Howlin Wolf.
Exactly, it’s that theme, that feel, yes
Do you know that the Otis Spann album he did was backed by Fleetwood Mac’s Peter Green?
Yeah, that is a major album for feel
You have John Mayer on this set don’t you? How did that come about?
Yeah. Fortunately, John reached out to me. Let me back up and say that on the last tour with the Rolling Stones, the Bigger Bang Tour that was like six years ago, John opened up some of the concerts with his blues trio. With Steve Jordan on drums and Dino Paladino on bass. And you know I wanted to meet this guy so I went out of my way to find him. So some time goes by and we finish the tour and I get a call from John and he said ‘I’m about to start a new album and I’d love for you to play’. So I ended up working with him on his recent record which is called ‘Born and Raised’. And it was during that time period that I was working on my project too so I hit him up and said ‘Hey man, how about hitting up on my thing? And he said sure. As a matter of fact, he even donated the studio time to me, to get both him and Keef. So we got them in the same day up in New York.
Terrific. Track twelve ‘If You Haven’t Any Hay’ is Skip James…
Who you will know, is more of a guitar player than a piano player.
I tell you, if you talk to Jack Bruce he is still in awe of Skip James and there’s a kind of ghostly presence to his work isn’t there? It’s quite striking even now. So of course, he and Otis Rush is gonna inspire us as guitar players because of that spooky edge to the music. But what do you find in his stuff? I’m interested
Well I think you’re right. There is kind of a mysterious tone and feel to it. But I love the syncopation. The little syncopation he does on the piano and that’s what attracted me. And you know, oddly enough for me as a piano player that one was one of the more difficult ones for me to get down. When I heard it I thought this is a simple, straight ahead little ditty. But no, when I went to play it I thought ‘Why doesn’t this sound right?’ (Laughs) And I had to sit down at the piano for a few days and just keep working on it and try to get that exact quirky syncopation that he has. And it’s probably because he didn’t play the piano that much. I mean, he could play it but again, he’s known more as a guitar player. And so, sometimes that’s the case. When Keith Richards sits down at the piano, he plays phrases and does things that I would never think to do.
The track ‘Blues is All Wrong’, by this point I’m thinking I wonder why Chuck hasn’t got one of his female friends like Mary Clayton on this…
Ah!
… And then Candi Staton appears! Singing the back off this number. Now how did that happen?
Well. Ain’t that wonderful man. Here’s the thing, when we were sorting this out we knew we wanted a female foil and we thought at the time we thought about contemporary women like Susan Tedeschi for instance. Or Grace Potter. We reached out to each one of those and they were all interested. But they were on tour, they were hard to get or they couldn’t find the time.
I saw Grace two months ago here..knockout
Well there you go. Anyway, so my son-in-law Steve says ‘Chuck do you realise that Candi Staton lives not far from here?’ We recorded in Athens’ Georgia. I said ‘You’re kidding me?’ And he said ‘No man. She’s right down the road. Like twenty miles.’ So I said ‘Christ sake, let’s go get her!’ Steve reached out and she came with her daughter. Man that wonderful smoky voice. And I was so glad it was a happy accident that we were able to get her. Because otherwise we would have gone with… I’m sure it would have been interesting and fun with either Susan or Grace, but to get a woman who is ‘learned in the art’ shall we say was really great
Well to get her or Mavis Staples. You play better music I reckon, if you stay a fan. You clearly are, because you admire all these people and you’ve gone to the trouble of making this record. I think you play better yourself if your feet stay on the ground. I live by that. Now, ‘Vicksburg Blues’ now you won’t believe this, you might. I know this song because it was a B-side of a Savoy Brown single here with Chris Youlden singing and Bob Hall on piano and that’s how I know the number. But of course, you would know it from the original source.
Well yes. And again, Little Brother. What an interesting character he was because —– grew up near New Orleans and absorbed the culture. The way of the music and that whole culture which really is multi-cultural now. But then he gets out of New Orleans and starts travelling a lot. He plays in all of these different settings. With trios, quintets, quartets, big bands. And also on his own. That track, when you listen to the original has to be one of the most plaintive and painful feelings about it. It’s like breaking your heart to hear this guy singing about what’s going on. I don’t think I could ever come close to doing it as meaningful as the original. I made my best shot of it and I thought it was just a beautiful piece that had to go on there
Yeah. Again, that would be a good one to play on Paul Jones’s Radio 2 show
What do I get on that show like four or five tracks?
I don’t know, maybe four ? Can we quickly talk about a couple of other things that come from your life at work?
Yeah sure.
Do you have a favourite Rolling Stones song, Chuck?
A favourite song ? Oh Pete, that’s such a hard question to answer. God almighty they’ve got so many great ones. And being sort of a semi-archivist of the band, by the way when we rehearse with the band I keep track of these things and I have these two enormous notebooks with notes from every rehearsal we’ve ever done. And so, I get really attached to these songs. I don’t know. I love ‘Honky Tonk Women’ I would pull that one out. I remember where I was when I first heard that song. I was living in Nashville, I was in one of my first bands. One of the first opportunities I got to record and that was an exciting time. The guitar player in the band ran into the house one day and said ‘I’ve got it! I’ve got it! Here it is!’ You’ve got what? ‘I got the new Stones single I was driving down the road and I heard it on the radio I pulled over and listened to it. I went straight to the record store and they had it. Here it is! ‘ And so of course it was a 45, and we put that thing on and listened to it all day. It’s just a simple thing but it’s got such a charm to it. That one sticks out to me. ‘Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’ ,we did that one last night
The one I like is ‘Mother’s Little Helper’ but they never seem to do it…
Well you know I brought that up several times. But I guess it’s just one for whatever reason just feels like we haven’t been able to nail it. Make it stage worthy I guess. A lot of those early tracks ‘19th Nervous Breakdown’ ..the big intro,,,
‘Have You Seen Your Mother Baby Standing In The Shadows’?.
That’s exactly the one I was thinking of !.
It sounds like you’re having fun on this tour. You must have known Ian Stewart?
Very well. As a matter of fact, I think it was Stewart who was responsible for me getting that position. When the phone rang it was someone from Bill Graham’s office. I was friends with Bill Graham because of the Allman Brothers Band.
I’ve got a question about that in a minute
Anyway, when I called back it was Ian Stewart who I spoke to first. We had a friendly phone conversation. And then he picked me up for the audition and we just hit it off immediately. I looked at Stew as a big brother. It was actually Stew who turned me on, I was a bit familiar with the boogie woogie guys but Stew was so into it. So he turned me onto Mead Luxe Lewis and Albert Ammons,and Montana Taylor and all this. For instance, when we were in London Stew would say ‘You’re not staying in hotel, you’re staying with me. I’ve got two nice pianos and a large record collection.’ We’d hang out for several days at his place. Just listen to his records and I learnt so much from him. He really helped my left hand immensely
Allman Brothers. I’ve been asked by Jules F one of the biggest Allman Brothers fans here he said can you ask Chuck if he ever met or played with Duane Allman?
I never played with Duane but I did meet him. I can tell you, I saw him play pre Allman Brothers many times
Hourglass?
No it was pre-Hourglass. It was called the Allman Joys and they played in my home town Tuscaloosa, Alabama on a regular basis. I was just amazing. Him and Greg Allman just blew us away. I can’t say that I ever knew Duane personally. I met him one time face to face and it was kind of metaphoric. I was flying into Georgia for a recording sessions and Duane was there and he was leaving. And we literally passed each other in the hall. We stopped and glanced at each other, acknowledged each other and that was it.
Why don’t you make a sixties/seventies Volume two?
(Laughs) Well let me tell you what we’re talking about now. Again this came from my son-in-law and he said ‘Chuck, you were born in Alabama, you were raised there, you started your career there, you started playing music there. And then eventually you moved to Georgia and you hooked up with Capricorn Records and then with the Allman Brothers band.
Oh quickly. Johnny Jenkins ‘Ton Ton Macoute’ is my favourite blues album and I love that album to death. ‘Voodoo in You’!!
I don’t know if you ever heard the record called ‘Blessed Blues’ that I worked on with Johnny. And again, this is kind of off the subject one of the first gigs I had was playing in Johnny’s band at the Atlanta Pop Festival. There’s some history there with Jenkins. Anyway, the point is, ‘Chuck you’ve got roots in Alabama and you have strong roots in Georgia. What if we did a project that celebrated music from both states ?.’ I mean they’re so many great artists you could look at Hank Williams from Alabama,….Muscle Shoals.. .
John Hammond’s best album was done down there with Hood , Hawkins and and that crew
What was that album?
‘Southern Fried’. . Duane’s on that and it’s a killer album
That’s what we’re thinking about now. It would be largely a roots thing but it doesn’t have to stick to the roots. For instance, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Joe South?
Oh yes. ‘The Games People Play’. Another guy that springs to mind is a guy called Don Nix
Ah yeah exactly!!!
And he wrote Goin Down’ for Freddie King
The idea would be that you could do songs from those artists. And Joe’s period would have been early sixties and you could do the roots thing with Hank Williams. So we’re kinda kickin’ that around right now. I think that’d be a fun project to do.
Where was Arthur Alexander from?
Oh man. He was from the South but I don’t know if it is Carolina, Georgia or Alabama. But it was certainly one of those.
(I look this up later and Arthur was from Sheffield….Alabama – PS)
Ok. Well look thanks for talking about your record and everything. I feel stupid because I’m not a keyboard player and I don’t know a tenth of what you know about keyboard playing. So maybe we should have got a keyboard player to do this interview!
I’m so glad you did and that you agreed to do this interview, man. It’s been a joy talking to you and I hope we can meet up.
You won’t because I can’t afford to go to the Stones shows !!
(Laughs) Oh that’s a shame !
I saw the Stones in Hyde Park for free the first time with Family when they let the doves go because Brian (Jones) had just passed
Thank you Pete and I hope to see you in London.
Chuck Leavell’s ‘ Back To the Woods’ is out on CrossCut Records
Pete Sargeant
