Chuck Leavell Unleashes the Beast

Y'all! Picture this: It's 90+ degrees, and the Georgia sun has been blazing down on me since noon, and now Chuck Leavell, the legendary Rolling Stones pianist, is hammering out a soul-stirring "Honky Tonk Women" solo right at the piano just feet away. And, readers, I GOT TO MEET HIM! This weekend at the Blind Willie McTell Music Festival in Thomson, GA, was unreal. Lots of great performances, and then there was Chuck—his show was phenomenal, and he was so kind when Dan and I randomly wandered to the artists' area to say hi!

Goodness, I am a sight with that sunburn. I couldn't stop smiling all day after this pic!

Chuck has been around for much longer than I've been even listening to rock & roll, so I guess I'm a bit of a latecomer. But I got to make up for some lost time this weekend! Here he is playing a bit of "Honky Tonk Women." The solo starts at about 1:04.

[Ugh, ugh, ugh. The video won't upload. Copyright issues, probably. Will try again later.]

He has been the keyboardist/music director for the Rolling Stones forever, and before that, he was with the Allman Brothers. He's played with a ton of other musicians, and my first encounter with his music was on Eric Clapton's Unplugged album, specifically his amazing "Alberta" piano solo.

I've been a member of Chuck's piano-teaching site, IROCKU, for a few months, and while I've incorporated some of the exercises (particularly for "Tipitina") into my technique work, mostly for rhythm work, I admit I haven't spent as much time there as I have at Piano With Jonny. I really need to spend more time at IROCKU! I think Jonny focuses more on enabling us to improvise, while IROCKU offers more in the way of rock/blues sheet music as starting points ... but I'm not sure. So I'll be exploring that some more in the coming weeks.

I was so inspired by Chuck's performance that I came home and played until I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore, despite being fried from eight hours at the festival. Here's a very rough take from this morning, messing around with "Honky Tonk Women." I mostly just reading chord names (G, C, D, etc.), playing by ear, and improvising. And this was the first time I've ever tried this song! (I kinda mess up on the chords in the middle, but I recover! Yay!)

I just printed out the IROCKU exercises for this song, which will help a lot with improvising solos. I'm watching the lesson videos over my lunch hour. I can't wait to get home tonight and dive into this!

Jonny May unlocked the door to my cage, and now Chuck Leavell has unleashed the beast! My piano future is bright with these two mentors (their teaching platforms, at least) in my life!

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