In this episode we chat about some crazy Dr. John moments from both Brian and Chuck Leavell, and the story behind the good luck charm Brian wears during every show. We get into The Allman Brothers and the tragic passing of Duane Allman and in contrast, we hear the full, and hysterical, version of the time Brian did not get the gig with Tina Turner, as well as one of Brian’s most embarrassing moments playing under the Eiffel Tower.
We also touch on Chuck’s side job as a tree farmer that just earned him a national award and documentary film that features interviews with over 80 musicians with a combined 58 Grammy Awards.
Check out Chuck's website: https://chuckleavell.com for his new music and the film: Chuck Leavell: The Tree Man at: https://www.chuckleavellthetreeman.com
For behind the scenes photos from these interviews and to send us questions for the Aftershow, join us on social media at: @OnTourPod on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter
On Tour is a production of Black Barrel Media and iHeartRadio, for more information about On Tour please visit our website at: BlackBarrelMedia.com
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to the after Show, the bonus episode series
for On Tour with Brian Ray. This is a production
of I Heart Radio and Black Barrel Media and I'm
your host, Mandy Wimmer. In the after show, We're going
to dive a little deeper into Brian's thoughts about certain
parts of the interviews, as well as expound a bit
more on his own experiences on tour. In this episode,
(00:31):
we're talking crazy Dr John moments from both Brian and Chuck,
and the story behind the good luck charm Brian wears
during every show. We get the full and hysterical version
of the time Brian did not get the gig with
Tina Turner, and one of Brian's most embarrassing moments playing
under the Eiffel Tower. We wrap it up with questions
(00:51):
from you the audience, and please keep the questions coming.
Hit us up on social media at Ontour Pod on Facebook, Instagram,
and Twitter. Here's my conversation with Brian. Right, all right, Brian,
(01:13):
we are back episode two. Chuck Level just dropped this week. Exciting, right,
very exciting. I absolutely love Chuck Level. I genuinely think
that he is probably one of the most sincere individuals
I have ever met. I just thoroughly enjoyed this interview
with him. Yeah, he's a true gentleman of rock and roll.
(01:35):
And it's you know, a lot of people out there
think that all rock and roll is he's ne'er do wells,
you know, reprobates, which is largely true. But along comes Chuck.
Are you talking about personal experience? Never? I remember when
we did this interview with him. I think we're at
(01:55):
the Four Seasons after a show, obviously this was pre COVID,
and we left, we left the hotel and the hotel room,
and I remember saying, well, first, first, I remember saying,
I'm absolutely starving, and I ran to the bar and
started eating all of the Chuck's mix off the bar.
I mean, just taking it down is I know. The
(02:15):
bartender was looking at me like, what the hell's wrong
with this person? I was out of control, But once
my blood sugars stabilized, I looked at you and I said,
everybody needs a chuckle a bell in their life. Yeah,
we do, everybody. I know. I just love him and
so he not only is the keyboardist and the musical
director for the Rolling Stones, one of the greatest rock
and roll bands of all time. But he also finds
(02:38):
time to write children's books and save the planet. That's right.
You know, he's all about the cause of adding more
oxygen and through his tree conservation, and it's just a
remarkable pursuit and he's he's so into it. Yeah, he
really is. I mean he is one of those people
that you know, if he's in, he's all in. That's obvious,
(02:59):
and so much so that he just won an award
National Tree Farmer of the Year this year from his
farm down in Georgia. There was a documentary film made
about him. When we did this interview, the documentary was
not done, was not yet done. It is out now.
It's called Chuck Lavell The tree Man, and over eighty
interviews with artists were done. I mean, talk about a
(03:20):
tribute to a man that over eighty artists with a
combined total of fifty eight Grammy Awards that are interviewed
for for this documentary, and even just looking at the trailer,
I mean John Mayor, Billy, Bob Thornton, and Keith Richards.
I mean these quotes about him. I think I actually
wrote a couple of them down because they're just truly amazing.
John Mayer says about him, classist, brilliant, most colorful architects
(03:45):
of the piano in the last forty years. I mean,
come on, he plays with his foot. Come on, I mean,
you know, two hands aren't enough in rock and roll
and Billy Bob Thornton talks about him just in saying
that human means like him don't exist anymore, and I
really have to agree with that once you meet him.
Keith Richards has an awesome quote. I mean, I just
(04:06):
recommend everybody check it out. You were involved in that,
weren't you. Yeah. Yeah, we we did a little show,
a short set down at the Fender guitar factory in Corona,
and it was a couple of the Fender guys that
through the daytime or building amazing custom guitars, Chuck and
I and we did some a couple of songs and
(04:27):
filmed it. Yeah, that's so cool. I don't know, I
don't know if it's on the cutting room floor or
if it's in the documentary. But it was really fun
and it was a joy to play with him. Oh
that's awesome, very very cool. So everybody check that out.
Chuck level the tree Man all over our social media
and in the show notes you can find the website
to check that out. So getting into some of Chuck's
tour stories, because lord knows he has plenty. Dr John
(04:51):
one of the saddest stories I think of my days
that I had tickets for Dr John. The tour got canceled.
I think he got sick or something like that, and
then it got rescheduled. I couldn't go, and then he
passed away shortly thereafter. So I never got to see
Dr John in person. Had you? How did you ever
see him? Yes? I did get tickets and I did go.
He was performing at UH West Hollywood's Troubadour, a famous
(05:14):
famous nightclub where Elton John made his debut in California
many many years ago. Anyway, this is a long time ago.
I was like a teenager and I went to hear
the great, brand new, very compelling artist, Dr John, the
night Tripper he was called, And he came out on
stage with a like a full on voodoo crown and
(05:35):
feathers and like bags of lizard balls. I mean, who
knows what's in there. It's like anyway, you know, he
comes out on stage and his band was so good
he had this guy I think his name was sugar
Bear on guitar who I really really loved this band,
just lovely, all of them in a bit of New
Orleans regalia and uh and and so uh. Dr John
(05:58):
sits down to the piano and and he has this
strange look like, why isn't this guy blinking? What's going
on here? His eyes are just wide open and just
seemingly looking into two space. Well what was going on
is Dr John painted eyeballs on his eyelids so he
could say there with his eyes shut and play piano.
(06:23):
Oh my god. Yeah, just this bizarre like big old
pupils staring straight out, just painted onto his eyelids. Who
even comes up with that? He does? And yeah, but
then like a manager or tour directors like that's an
awesome idea, it isn't awesome. I mean, you know, if
you're going to nod out every once in a while
on piano, you gotta give your audience something. I mean,
(06:46):
if you're gonna nod out, don't you stop playing? Or
nobody cares because they're just staring at the show is amazing.
Not Dr John. He's straight New Orleans man. I love it.
I got I used to go to jazz Fest all
the time. Absolutely love jazz Fest. I mean he is
straight New Orleans. I you know, I just I wish
I could have seen him, man, But he always used
to play with Edda James too. He came. He came
(07:07):
several times to sit in with us, and it was
so lovely. You know, he didn't have sort of the
power or command vocally that Eda had. Eda had this
huge voice, but Eda was so generous as as a
host to him, guesting that she would kind of like
mold down her performance to be correct with him, and
(07:29):
it was just so sweet. They would do I'd rather
go blind her big ballad and they would trade versus.
It was so cute. So did he come in full
regalia to shows? No? No, no, he'd be wearing like
a page boy cap or something like that, just just
sort of more street. I want to know what happened
to sugar Bear. I was was. I'm super bummed I
didn't get to see him. So Chuck tells awesome stories,
(07:53):
one of them being he went to go see him
in his hotel room and Doctor John disappeared for a while,
so Chuck kind of curiosity gets the best of him.
He starts kind of looking around. He finds his journal
with all of the band members of the people auditioning
for the band I think it was, and Voodoo simples
next to them. Would that not completely freak you out? Yeah,
(08:14):
I'd be like check please. But he was, he was more.
He was more in it. I mean that's and then
later he talks about how he and Dr John connected.
I think this may have been kind of near possibly
near the end of his life. I'm not totally positive
on the timeline, but ended up giving him a gift
that he said, don't tell anybody what it is, but
(08:35):
keep it with you, and I think this will bring
you good luck. And first of all, I'm dying. I
have to know what it is. My goal in life
is to find out what this is. The Doctor John
gave Chuck level but I doubt I'll ever know anyway.
Chuck credits it with giving him years and years and
years of good luck. Fantastically amazing. Do you have anything
(08:56):
that was given to you or that you always carry
with you? It's like you're a good luck charm. Mm,
well yeah, I I I do. Yeah. I have been
wearing an Onyx ring Onyx with a silver setting since
nineteen ninety since n every day. Uh And it was
(09:17):
a gift to me from a guy named Johnny Halliday
who was a big artist in France. And now we
may not know of him over here in America, but
he was as big as Elvis was here in all
French speaking uh lands, including the Islands. But anyway, we
had become very very close. My dad had sadly passed
(09:39):
away while we were on tour together. We were in
Monte Carlo and Uh I had just found out and
uh Abe Jr. Who plays with Paul As as many
of you know, was the drummer with Johnny Halliday too,
and so you know, I told my buddy Abe and
we took a cigar and went down to the marina
(10:00):
there and watched the boats go by and just had
some moment to honor my dad with a cigar right
before going to play a show. Well, we pop into
the show. We get there like twenty minutes before curtain.
Everyone's panicked. We put in a great show. Johnny was
very very happy with it. I had not told Johnny
(10:20):
what happened because I didn't want to bump him out.
He's got to go and carry a show. So at
the end of the show, Johnny comes down the stairs
and he goes, right, and he speaks in this really low,
gruff voice. He says, will you come to dinner with me?
And I said yeah, so Abe and I waited and
we went out to a lovely, lovely dinner and he
comes down after getting ready for the dinner, comes down,
(10:42):
he goes, right, do you wear rings? And I go, well, yeah,
sometimes I just put out your hand and I put
out my hand and he slid it off his finger
onto mine. Oh my gosh, it was his right. It's
been there ever since. Yeah, well he actually gave you
his rights and in memory and a tribute to my dad,
who had just passed away the day that day. Wow,
that's amazing. I mean, obviously I see you wearing that
(11:04):
ring all the time, and anyone who's seen you in
concert sees that ring as you're wearing it every time
you play. So and what year was at that must
have been that that's when my dad passed away. Yeah,
it was August of so kind of a feeling of
having your dad with you and Johnny with you as
your best right because now we've lost Johnny unfortunately to
(11:25):
right man, how good buddy was a great buddy. That's amazing.
It's a beautiful ring too. By the way, I have
to transition to your biggest no stories. You and Chuck
told some both told some hysterical no stories, and Chuck's
(11:48):
being with James Taylor and yours being with Tina Turner. Yeah,
I mean, first of all, how do you get over
a note from Tina Turner? Because Derek, I say, she
is simply the best way I see what you did there.
Let's let's let's take a minute just to basque in
(12:09):
that intended puntery. Anyway, It's just gonna get better. It's
only going to get better. Okay, Well, um, you know.
Uh so that was right before I got a big
tour with Laura brand Agan and I went out on
it an audition, I was called an audition. Tina wasn't
even there, but it was most of the band, not
(12:31):
the singers. It was just sort of the rhythm section.
So you had the drummer, a guitar player, bass player,
and sitting directly in front of me, like fifteen feet
away was that sort of saxophone player with the tank
top t shirt and the man bun and very well
oiled muscle builder who destroyed sacks for a whole decade.
(12:57):
He alone anyway, here, I am skinny, white kid with
white hair. I think my hair was piled up with
hairspray at this point. This is mid eighties, so Duran,
Duran was all the thing. And I came in maybe
with a jacket with big shoulder pads, and my hair
is like standing up. Maybe not the right culture according
(13:19):
to you know, oily muscle guy. And he's just looking
at me. And I caught him give a look to
the guitar player like this isn't gonna work. And it
was before you played a note. Was it the shoulder
pads that last it for you? I'm sure it was
the aquinete. Yeah, that's reserved for just Tina. I mean,
(13:40):
had you seen Tina play? I mean, did you not
have some for that? Like, I mean, come on, she's
wearing AQ when that was wrong? Oh my god. You
can't upstage that. I will, No one can upstage Tina Turner.
Come on. But I'm sure muscleman is like, this guy's
not gonna be like hang and where is he today?
I ask you? I don't know? Okay, case close, Okay,
(14:00):
Well since we don't know moving on, we wish him
the best. I'm sure he's doing fabulous things, and all
I care about that you are not wearing shoulder plaids
and AquaNet at this point. And I do not fold
a grudge. No, that's clear, So I think we should
move on. It's getting getting a little violent over there, alright,
So we're gonna change topics here because things are getting
(14:23):
a little heated. Dwayne Alman man Chuck Lavell, got his
start at twenty years old with the Allman Brothers. Dwayne
Almand tragically killed in a motorcycle accident at four. Would
love to have him still around, man. I mean, one
of the best slide guitar players of all time. I mean,
who do you think was up there with him at
that time? Wow? I mean, so Dwayne wasn't just a
(14:45):
great slide player. He was a great guitar player. And
he played on a Wreath is Big hits. He was
on that when You Come Home, that great. In fact,
a lot of Wreath is Gold is Dwayne Almand playing
one of the guitars and that was produced by Jerry Wexler. Anyway,
at that time when he was big, early Almond Brothers.
(15:07):
When we were all exposed to the Almond Brothers early seventies,
I'm still in high school and at that time, I mean,
I guess there were a couple of other people who
were great like him. You had Dwayne Alman, Bonnie Rate,
you had Ray Couter and LOLd George of the band
called Little Feet. Those four ruled the slide guitar and
(15:29):
I listened to them NonStop, all of them. I loved it.
Nice to have a badass woman in that group. Yeah,
I mean, and she's still tearing it up. Bunny is
maybe one of the most underrated guitar players, uh, you
know in rock and roll, blues, R and B. Yeah,
she's she's incredible. She's incredible. Wow, I mean the Almond
(15:50):
Brothers mean that big record Rambling Man. You know, it
was the first one that Chuck did with them. God,
I mean, like you think back to their music, it's just,
I mean, what a loss to lose him and then
clear he talks about Dicky Betts kind of trying to
step in, but you know, obviously it wasn't the same.
And but Dickie Bets incredible as well. I mean, just
a great band. Yeah, great yeah, we've you know, we
lost a couple of these guys, you know, Greg Holman
(16:12):
passed as well. I mean, what a great we had them,
and they gave us so much. And that iconic Eda
Peach album is amazing and Live at the film or
just great, great stuff. That's the great thing about music
is that it lives on forever. I mean you can
always go back and you know, and there it is,
these great, amazing classic songs. They're never going to leave us, alright.
(16:36):
So Chuck's most embarrassing moment, I have got to say
I love Eric Clapton and his song Layla is probably
the one that is I mean, for me, the most
well known. And I'm sure that you know, everyone in
the world knows knows the song Layla. I mean everybody
can sing along with it, everybody knows the rhythm. Chuck's
most embarrassing moment was on stage with Eric Clapton and
(16:58):
a huge jazz bit comes up, which is basically Chuck
and he completely forgets the song. He does not know
what he played. I mean, incredibly embarrassing. Of course, Eric
Clapton is cordial and acts like it didn't happen, which
I mean obviously everybody, everybody in the audience, I'm sure
knew that it happened, including Eric Clapton. Of course. Have
(17:20):
you ever had a moment like that where you've just
completely blanked either singing or guitar. Oh, yes, I'm sure
there's many that other people out there might be able
to remind me of better than I would remember, because
I would tend to just black out and act like
it never happened. No, there was this one time with
Johnny Halliday in fact, in a huge show. It might
(17:41):
have been two year, two thousand under the Eiffel Tower,
a great big show. We did a free show with
five thousand people. There was huge and there was this
uh segue where Johnny was going to go he he
was going to be coming down a sort of an
elevator on to the stage like stage trickery. After after
(18:04):
a shirt change, uh and uh. The horns had a
queue they had to do something, and I was to
play an instrumental section, which was basically something I came
up with. It was a medley of like you know,
um James Bond theme and a bunch of other Peter
Gunn theme, all kind of medley together with the horn players. Well,
(18:25):
this night, in particular, with five thousand people, I just
skipped to the next song. You just started a new
song and started the next song. And what did the
band I even know it until we were on the
bus later when the horn guys were going, what the
hell happened up there? And I'm like, what do you mean?
And so Johnny had to hurry down after a very
(18:47):
quick shirt change, and he just went on like nothing happened.
I'm sure he he probably went stan under his breath,
but that was about it. I mean, you were just
ready to go, Hey, let's keep rolling, you know, keep
drawing who Johnny Halliday probably did, but he didn't get it.
(19:07):
He didn't get it, so you know, so it wasn't
written about in reviews or anything like that or no.
I mean, just the band guys just getting grilled on
the on the bus after the show by the horn
section was enough and you had no idea. All right,
(19:39):
So we are going to wrap it up today with
some audience questions. We've got some great audience or some
great listeners have written in with some great questions, and
so we're going to hit a few of them. Obviously,
we can't hit all of them. We have written a
lot of them down, and so each one of these
after shows will keep ticking them off, and so please
keep sending them in and we will keep answering them.
(20:00):
So we're gonna get to a few of them, and
then obviously we're going to end with our little lightning rounds.
Are two questions right now, all right, So the first
question that we got was from someone who wanted to
know about your experience with Willie Deville. Ah, yes, and
did you tour with him? Did you just do sessions
(20:20):
with him? And did you feel that he was a
bit underrated? This this audience member felt that that was
likely the case. But what are your thoughts? Yeah, Well,
my experience with Willie was I played on I think
three albums with him in uh sort of the mid
nineties to early two thousand's UM all wonderful projects, and uh,
(20:45):
I really adored him. I thought he was very special.
He was sort of this um. He was sort of
a street urchin artist, kind of not unlike Bruce Springsteen
or Southside Johnny or even in Elvis Costello. He came
up in that same period. There are a lot of
searing sack solos and you know, sort of Spanish rhythms
(21:06):
and things like that, and he wrote with Doc Pomas
an amazing artist. UM, and I do feel like he
was underrated. I felt like if he had more sort
of broad charisma, that there is no reason there wasn't
room for Bruce Springsteen Anna Willie Deville. But also I
think he got in his own way in his own
(21:27):
life a little bit here and there. From what I understand, Yeah,
great guy, and I'm really honored to have been a
part of it. Oh wow, what a bummer. I mean,
sounds sounds pretty amazing. And so we do have a
lot of Bayonets fans there. So this question came up
a few times. Will the Bayonets ever tour again? You know,
(21:47):
I will never say never. Um, just have to see
what the future brings. There could be some new recordings,
but that's all I'll say. Oh my god, the most
political answer of all time could be, could be? Maybe
possibly could be. So we're leaving you on the edge
(22:10):
of your chairs with that one, but we will certainly
be back with more. Now. Another question that we did
get that I do think is worth worth discussing is
was this show recorded during COVID? Have we been doing it?
During COVID will it continue after COVID, and so myself
as a producer, I will take part of it. We'll
both take this question. And so fortunately, the majority of
(22:32):
this show was done right before COVID, I mean almost
right in the nick of the time, in the nick
of time, we're ready to go. So basically during COVID
were impost um. Things certainly got pushed back a few
times because of COVID and a couple other situations, but uh,
you know, we've been we were were fortunate to kind
of get the actual interviews in which was great. Um,
(22:53):
and it looks like, you know, when we start doing
season two, hopefully things are a little bit back to
normal and so we'll be able to do those in
person as well, hopefully, So we'll we'll see hopefully. Yeah. Well,
it's been just a little bit fortuitous that we had
so much to do in post production and then so
much to do in getting this project out to market
(23:15):
with in in uh in harmony with My Heart Music
and My Heart Radio, So that that's that took a
lot of work itself, right exactly. I mean, there's obviously
a lot of work to do on these shows aside
from just doing the interviews. So you know, so we
did get pushed back a little bit because of everything,
but you know, we uh we we made it and
(23:37):
we're excited to have season two hopefully starting here pretty soon.
So those recordings. Alright, so the lightning round Okay, okay,
if you remember, there's a lot of pressure you have
to these are one word answers. You can't think, and
there's one of them. I think that you're going to
try and like fudge around. So you know, we'll see,
we'll see how you see how this goes. Okay, I'm ready. Okay,
(23:59):
So one has to do with music and one does
not have to do with music. You are a very
multitalented musician. You play a lot of instruments. You have
played a lot of instruments, but guitars certainly your expertise.
If you did not play the guitar, which instrument would
you want to play? Drums? Really sure? I started on
(24:21):
drums before I was a guitar player. I was a
drummer and I took two guitar playing as well. In fact,
I liked every instrument in the band. But um the
reason that I became a guitar player rather than a
drummer really was because my best buddy in junior high
school was a better drummer than I was and had
(24:42):
this impressive double double drum set right to bass drums too,
toms to floor toms, a million symbols. It was all black.
And I had this simple, little five piece red sparkle
Roger set. And he was very flashy. Uh, the son
of Chloris Leachman, the great late or Speech Leachman. His
name was Brian England and I miss him greatly, and
(25:05):
that's the reason I moved over to I just said, okay,
then I'll play guitar because he had a flash ear
drum set exactly. Wow. Well, I think the world is
happy you moved over to guitar. It's been fun. What
can I say, less stuff the lug around too. Yeah,
I know that that is definitely true. Alright, So the
question that has nothing to do with music setting the stage.
(25:26):
You're headed on vacation in the United States, right, we're
not going overseas. I am you are. Do you fly
or drive? I drive whenever possible. I'm itching for a
road trip. Drive nice, nice, even if it's like twenty hours. Yeah,
break it up, nice, make a mixed tape. You know,
(25:47):
see the country. That's right. I love it. Nice and nice. Okay, well,
very good. So that's it for today for the after show.
For the Chuck Level after show, Thank you, Chuck Level.
Thank you so much, Chuck Level again for an amaze
using interview. We love you to death and we will
be back next week. I love you, Chuck. That was
really fun. All right, see you later, Brian. Okay, bye,
(26:09):
many Thank you everyone for listening. On Tour and After
Show our productions of I Heart Radio and Black Barrel Media.
(26:30):
This show is produced by me Mandy Wimmer with executive
producer Noel Brown. For more information about on Tour, visit
our website black Barrel Media dot com. From behind the
scenes photos from these interviews, and to interact with us,
visit our social media at on Tour pod on Facebook, Instagram,
and Twitter. For more shows from I Heeart Radio and
(26:50):
Black Barrel Media, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you get your podcasts. M
You're listening to the after Show, the bonus episode series
for On Tour with Brian Ray. This is a production
of I Heart Radio and Black Barrel Media and I'm
your host, Mandy Wimmer. In the after show, We're going
to dive a little deeper into Brian's thoughts about certain
parts of the interviews, as well as expound a bit
more on his own experiences on tour. In this episode,
(00:31):
we're talking crazy Dr John moments from both Brian and Chuck,
and the story behind the good luck charm Brian wears
during every show. We get the full and hysterical version
of the time Brian did not get the gig with
Tina Turner, and one of Brian's most embarrassing moments playing
under the Eiffel Tower. We wrap it up with questions
(00:51):
from you the audience, and please keep the questions coming.
Hit us up on social media at Ontour Pod on Facebook, Instagram,
and Twitter. Here's my conversation with Brian. Right, all right, Brian,
(01:13):
we are back episode two. Chuck Level just dropped this week. Exciting, right,
very exciting. I absolutely love Chuck Level. I genuinely think
that he is probably one of the most sincere individuals
I have ever met. I just thoroughly enjoyed this interview
with him. Yeah, he's a true gentleman of rock and roll.
(01:35):
And it's you know, a lot of people out there
think that all rock and roll is he's ne'er do wells,
you know, reprobates, which is largely true. But along comes Chuck.
Are you talking about personal experience? Never? I remember when
we did this interview with him. I think we're at
(01:55):
the Four Seasons after a show, obviously this was pre COVID,
and we left, we left the hotel and the hotel room,
and I remember saying, well, first, first, I remember saying,
I'm absolutely starving, and I ran to the bar and
started eating all of the Chuck's mix off the bar.
I mean, just taking it down is I know. The
(02:15):
bartender was looking at me like, what the hell's wrong
with this person? I was out of control, But once
my blood sugars stabilized, I looked at you and I said,
everybody needs a chuckle a bell in their life. Yeah,
we do, everybody. I know. I just love him and
so he not only is the keyboardist and the musical
director for the Rolling Stones, one of the greatest rock
and roll bands of all time. But he also finds
(02:38):
time to write children's books and save the planet. That's right.
You know, he's all about the cause of adding more
oxygen and through his tree conservation, and it's just a
remarkable pursuit and he's he's so into it. Yeah, he
really is. I mean he is one of those people
that you know, if he's in, he's all in. That's obvious,
(02:59):
and so much so that he just won an award
National Tree Farmer of the Year this year from his
farm down in Georgia. There was a documentary film made
about him. When we did this interview, the documentary was
not done, was not yet done. It is out now.
It's called Chuck Lavell The tree Man, and over eighty
interviews with artists were done. I mean, talk about a
(03:20):
tribute to a man that over eighty artists with a
combined total of fifty eight Grammy Awards that are interviewed
for for this documentary, and even just looking at the trailer,
I mean John Mayor, Billy, Bob Thornton, and Keith Richards.
I mean these quotes about him. I think I actually
wrote a couple of them down because they're just truly amazing.
John Mayer says about him, classist, brilliant, most colorful architects
(03:45):
of the piano in the last forty years. I mean,
come on, he plays with his foot. Come on, I mean,
you know, two hands aren't enough in rock and roll
and Billy Bob Thornton talks about him just in saying
that human means like him don't exist anymore, and I
really have to agree with that once you meet him.
Keith Richards has an awesome quote. I mean, I just
(04:06):
recommend everybody check it out. You were involved in that,
weren't you. Yeah. Yeah, we we did a little show,
a short set down at the Fender guitar factory in Corona,
and it was a couple of the Fender guys that
through the daytime or building amazing custom guitars, Chuck and
I and we did some a couple of songs and
(04:27):
filmed it. Yeah, that's so cool. I don't know, I
don't know if it's on the cutting room floor or
if it's in the documentary. But it was really fun
and it was a joy to play with him. Oh
that's awesome, very very cool. So everybody check that out.
Chuck level the tree Man all over our social media
and in the show notes you can find the website
to check that out. So getting into some of Chuck's
tour stories, because lord knows he has plenty. Dr John
(04:51):
one of the saddest stories I think of my days
that I had tickets for Dr John. The tour got canceled.
I think he got sick or something like that, and
then it got rescheduled. I couldn't go, and then he
passed away shortly thereafter. So I never got to see
Dr John in person. Had you? How did you ever
see him? Yes? I did get tickets and I did go.
He was performing at UH West Hollywood's Troubadour, a famous
(05:14):
famous nightclub where Elton John made his debut in California
many many years ago. Anyway, this is a long time ago.
I was like a teenager and I went to hear
the great, brand new, very compelling artist, Dr John, the
night Tripper he was called, And he came out on
stage with a like a full on voodoo crown and
(05:35):
feathers and like bags of lizard balls. I mean, who
knows what's in there. It's like anyway, you know, he
comes out on stage and his band was so good
he had this guy I think his name was sugar
Bear on guitar who I really really loved this band,
just lovely, all of them in a bit of New
Orleans regalia and uh and and so uh. Dr John
(05:58):
sits down to the piano and and he has this
strange look like, why isn't this guy blinking? What's going
on here? His eyes are just wide open and just
seemingly looking into two space. Well what was going on
is Dr John painted eyeballs on his eyelids so he
could say there with his eyes shut and play piano.
(06:23):
Oh my god. Yeah, just this bizarre like big old
pupils staring straight out, just painted onto his eyelids. Who
even comes up with that? He does? And yeah, but
then like a manager or tour directors like that's an
awesome idea, it isn't awesome. I mean, you know, if
you're going to nod out every once in a while
on piano, you gotta give your audience something. I mean,
(06:46):
if you're gonna nod out, don't you stop playing? Or
nobody cares because they're just staring at the show is amazing.
Not Dr John. He's straight New Orleans man. I love it.
I got I used to go to jazz Fest all
the time. Absolutely love jazz Fest. I mean he is
straight New Orleans. I you know, I just I wish
I could have seen him, man, But he always used
to play with Edda James too. He came. He came
(07:07):
several times to sit in with us, and it was
so lovely. You know, he didn't have sort of the
power or command vocally that Eda had. Eda had this
huge voice, but Eda was so generous as as a
host to him, guesting that she would kind of like
mold down her performance to be correct with him, and
(07:29):
it was just so sweet. They would do I'd rather
go blind her big ballad and they would trade versus.
It was so cute. So did he come in full
regalia to shows? No? No, no, he'd be wearing like
a page boy cap or something like that, just just
sort of more street. I want to know what happened
to sugar Bear. I was was. I'm super bummed I
didn't get to see him. So Chuck tells awesome stories,
(07:53):
one of them being he went to go see him
in his hotel room and Doctor John disappeared for a while,
so Chuck kind of curiosity gets the best of him.
He starts kind of looking around. He finds his journal
with all of the band members of the people auditioning
for the band I think it was, and Voodoo simples
next to them. Would that not completely freak you out? Yeah,
(08:14):
I'd be like check please. But he was, he was more.
He was more in it. I mean that's and then
later he talks about how he and Dr John connected.
I think this may have been kind of near possibly
near the end of his life. I'm not totally positive
on the timeline, but ended up giving him a gift
that he said, don't tell anybody what it is, but
(08:35):
keep it with you, and I think this will bring
you good luck. And first of all, I'm dying. I
have to know what it is. My goal in life
is to find out what this is. The Doctor John
gave Chuck level but I doubt I'll ever know anyway.
Chuck credits it with giving him years and years and
years of good luck. Fantastically amazing. Do you have anything
(08:56):
that was given to you or that you always carry
with you? It's like you're a good luck charm. Mm,
well yeah, I I I do. Yeah. I have been
wearing an Onyx ring Onyx with a silver setting since
nineteen ninety since n every day. Uh And it was
(09:17):
a gift to me from a guy named Johnny Halliday
who was a big artist in France. And now we
may not know of him over here in America, but
he was as big as Elvis was here in all
French speaking uh lands, including the Islands. But anyway, we
had become very very close. My dad had sadly passed
(09:39):
away while we were on tour together. We were in
Monte Carlo and Uh I had just found out and
uh Abe Jr. Who plays with Paul As as many
of you know, was the drummer with Johnny Halliday too,
and so you know, I told my buddy Abe and
we took a cigar and went down to the marina
(10:00):
there and watched the boats go by and just had
some moment to honor my dad with a cigar right
before going to play a show. Well, we pop into
the show. We get there like twenty minutes before curtain.
Everyone's panicked. We put in a great show. Johnny was
very very happy with it. I had not told Johnny
(10:20):
what happened because I didn't want to bump him out.
He's got to go and carry a show. So at
the end of the show, Johnny comes down the stairs
and he goes, right, and he speaks in this really low,
gruff voice. He says, will you come to dinner with me?
And I said yeah, so Abe and I waited and
we went out to a lovely, lovely dinner and he
comes down after getting ready for the dinner, comes down,
(10:42):
he goes, right, do you wear rings? And I go, well, yeah,
sometimes I just put out your hand and I put
out my hand and he slid it off his finger
onto mine. Oh my gosh, it was his right. It's
been there ever since. Yeah, well he actually gave you
his rights and in memory and a tribute to my dad,
who had just passed away the day that day. Wow,
that's amazing. I mean, obviously I see you wearing that
(11:04):
ring all the time, and anyone who's seen you in
concert sees that ring as you're wearing it every time
you play. So and what year was at that must
have been that that's when my dad passed away. Yeah,
it was August of so kind of a feeling of
having your dad with you and Johnny with you as
your best right because now we've lost Johnny unfortunately to
(11:25):
right man, how good buddy was a great buddy. That's amazing.
It's a beautiful ring too. By the way, I have
to transition to your biggest no stories. You and Chuck
told some both told some hysterical no stories, and Chuck's
(11:48):
being with James Taylor and yours being with Tina Turner. Yeah,
I mean, first of all, how do you get over
a note from Tina Turner? Because Derek, I say, she
is simply the best way I see what you did there.
Let's let's let's take a minute just to basque in
(12:09):
that intended puntery. Anyway, It's just gonna get better. It's
only going to get better. Okay, Well, um, you know.
Uh so that was right before I got a big
tour with Laura brand Agan and I went out on
it an audition, I was called an audition. Tina wasn't
even there, but it was most of the band, not
(12:31):
the singers. It was just sort of the rhythm section.
So you had the drummer, a guitar player, bass player,
and sitting directly in front of me, like fifteen feet
away was that sort of saxophone player with the tank
top t shirt and the man bun and very well
oiled muscle builder who destroyed sacks for a whole decade.
(12:57):
He alone anyway, here, I am skinny, white kid with
white hair. I think my hair was piled up with
hairspray at this point. This is mid eighties, so Duran,
Duran was all the thing. And I came in maybe
with a jacket with big shoulder pads, and my hair
is like standing up. Maybe not the right culture according
(13:19):
to you know, oily muscle guy. And he's just looking
at me. And I caught him give a look to
the guitar player like this isn't gonna work. And it
was before you played a note. Was it the shoulder
pads that last it for you? I'm sure it was
the aquinete. Yeah, that's reserved for just Tina. I mean,
(13:40):
had you seen Tina play? I mean, did you not
have some for that? Like, I mean, come on, she's
wearing AQ when that was wrong? Oh my god. You
can't upstage that. I will, No one can upstage Tina Turner.
Come on. But I'm sure muscleman is like, this guy's
not gonna be like hang and where is he today?
I ask you? I don't know? Okay, case close, Okay,
(14:00):
Well since we don't know moving on, we wish him
the best. I'm sure he's doing fabulous things, and all
I care about that you are not wearing shoulder plaids
and AquaNet at this point. And I do not fold
a grudge. No, that's clear, So I think we should
move on. It's getting getting a little violent over there, alright,
So we're gonna change topics here because things are getting
(14:23):
a little heated. Dwayne Alman man Chuck Lavell, got his
start at twenty years old with the Allman Brothers. Dwayne
Almand tragically killed in a motorcycle accident at four. Would
love to have him still around, man. I mean, one
of the best slide guitar players of all time. I mean,
who do you think was up there with him at
that time? Wow? I mean, so Dwayne wasn't just a
(14:45):
great slide player. He was a great guitar player. And
he played on a Wreath is Big hits. He was
on that when You Come Home, that great. In fact,
a lot of Wreath is Gold is Dwayne Almand playing
one of the guitars and that was produced by Jerry Wexler. Anyway,
at that time when he was big, early Almond Brothers.
(15:07):
When we were all exposed to the Almond Brothers early seventies,
I'm still in high school and at that time, I mean,
I guess there were a couple of other people who
were great like him. You had Dwayne Alman, Bonnie Rate,
you had Ray Couter and LOLd George of the band
called Little Feet. Those four ruled the slide guitar and
(15:29):
I listened to them NonStop, all of them. I loved it.
Nice to have a badass woman in that group. Yeah,
I mean, and she's still tearing it up. Bunny is
maybe one of the most underrated guitar players, uh, you
know in rock and roll, blues, R and B. Yeah,
she's she's incredible. She's incredible. Wow, I mean the Almond
(15:50):
Brothers mean that big record Rambling Man. You know, it
was the first one that Chuck did with them. God,
I mean, like you think back to their music, it's just,
I mean, what a loss to lose him and then
clear he talks about Dicky Betts kind of trying to
step in, but you know, obviously it wasn't the same.
And but Dickie Bets incredible as well. I mean, just
a great band. Yeah, great yeah, we've you know, we
lost a couple of these guys, you know, Greg Holman
(16:12):
passed as well. I mean, what a great we had them,
and they gave us so much. And that iconic Eda
Peach album is amazing and Live at the film or
just great, great stuff. That's the great thing about music
is that it lives on forever. I mean you can
always go back and you know, and there it is,
these great, amazing classic songs. They're never going to leave us, alright.
(16:36):
So Chuck's most embarrassing moment, I have got to say
I love Eric Clapton and his song Layla is probably
the one that is I mean, for me, the most
well known. And I'm sure that you know, everyone in
the world knows knows the song Layla. I mean everybody
can sing along with it, everybody knows the rhythm. Chuck's
most embarrassing moment was on stage with Eric Clapton and
(16:58):
a huge jazz bit comes up, which is basically Chuck
and he completely forgets the song. He does not know
what he played. I mean, incredibly embarrassing. Of course, Eric
Clapton is cordial and acts like it didn't happen, which
I mean obviously everybody, everybody in the audience, I'm sure
knew that it happened, including Eric Clapton. Of course. Have
(17:20):
you ever had a moment like that where you've just
completely blanked either singing or guitar. Oh, yes, I'm sure
there's many that other people out there might be able
to remind me of better than I would remember, because
I would tend to just black out and act like
it never happened. No, there was this one time with
Johnny Halliday in fact, in a huge show. It might
(17:41):
have been two year, two thousand under the Eiffel Tower,
a great big show. We did a free show with
five thousand people. There was huge and there was this
uh segue where Johnny was going to go he he
was going to be coming down a sort of an
elevator on to the stage like stage trickery. After after
(18:04):
a shirt change, uh and uh. The horns had a
queue they had to do something, and I was to
play an instrumental section, which was basically something I came
up with. It was a medley of like you know,
um James Bond theme and a bunch of other Peter
Gunn theme, all kind of medley together with the horn players. Well,
(18:25):
this night, in particular, with five thousand people, I just
skipped to the next song. You just started a new
song and started the next song. And what did the
band I even know it until we were on the
bus later when the horn guys were going, what the
hell happened up there? And I'm like, what do you mean?
And so Johnny had to hurry down after a very
(18:47):
quick shirt change, and he just went on like nothing happened.
I'm sure he he probably went stan under his breath,
but that was about it. I mean, you were just
ready to go, Hey, let's keep rolling, you know, keep
drawing who Johnny Halliday probably did, but he didn't get it.
(19:07):
He didn't get it, so you know, so it wasn't
written about in reviews or anything like that or no.
I mean, just the band guys just getting grilled on
the on the bus after the show by the horn
section was enough and you had no idea. All right,
(19:39):
So we are going to wrap it up today with
some audience questions. We've got some great audience or some
great listeners have written in with some great questions, and
so we're going to hit a few of them. Obviously,
we can't hit all of them. We have written a
lot of them down, and so each one of these
after shows will keep ticking them off, and so please
keep sending them in and we will keep answering them.
(20:00):
So we're gonna get to a few of them, and
then obviously we're going to end with our little lightning rounds.
Are two questions right now, all right, So the first
question that we got was from someone who wanted to
know about your experience with Willie Deville. Ah, yes, and
did you tour with him? Did you just do sessions
(20:20):
with him? And did you feel that he was a
bit underrated? This this audience member felt that that was
likely the case. But what are your thoughts? Yeah, Well,
my experience with Willie was I played on I think
three albums with him in uh sort of the mid
nineties to early two thousand's UM all wonderful projects, and uh,
(20:45):
I really adored him. I thought he was very special.
He was sort of this um. He was sort of
a street urchin artist, kind of not unlike Bruce Springsteen
or Southside Johnny or even in Elvis Costello. He came
up in that same period. There are a lot of
searing sack solos and you know, sort of Spanish rhythms
(21:06):
and things like that, and he wrote with Doc Pomas
an amazing artist. UM, and I do feel like he
was underrated. I felt like if he had more sort
of broad charisma, that there is no reason there wasn't
room for Bruce Springsteen Anna Willie Deville. But also I
think he got in his own way in his own
(21:27):
life a little bit here and there. From what I understand, Yeah,
great guy, and I'm really honored to have been a
part of it. Oh wow, what a bummer. I mean,
sounds sounds pretty amazing. And so we do have a
lot of Bayonets fans there. So this question came up
a few times. Will the Bayonets ever tour again? You know,
(21:47):
I will never say never. Um, just have to see
what the future brings. There could be some new recordings,
but that's all I'll say. Oh my god, the most
political answer of all time could be, could be? Maybe
possibly could be. So we're leaving you on the edge
(22:10):
of your chairs with that one, but we will certainly
be back with more. Now. Another question that we did
get that I do think is worth worth discussing is
was this show recorded during COVID? Have we been doing it?
During COVID will it continue after COVID, and so myself
as a producer, I will take part of it. We'll
both take this question. And so fortunately, the majority of
(22:32):
this show was done right before COVID, I mean almost
right in the nick of the time, in the nick
of time, we're ready to go. So basically during COVID
were impost um. Things certainly got pushed back a few
times because of COVID and a couple other situations, but uh,
you know, we've been we were were fortunate to kind
of get the actual interviews in which was great. Um,
(22:53):
and it looks like, you know, when we start doing
season two, hopefully things are a little bit back to
normal and so we'll be able to do those in
person as well, hopefully, So we'll we'll see hopefully. Yeah. Well,
it's been just a little bit fortuitous that we had
so much to do in post production and then so
much to do in getting this project out to market
(23:15):
with in in uh in harmony with My Heart Music
and My Heart Radio, So that that's that took a
lot of work itself, right exactly. I mean, there's obviously
a lot of work to do on these shows aside
from just doing the interviews. So you know, so we
did get pushed back a little bit because of everything,
but you know, we uh we we made it and
(23:37):
we're excited to have season two hopefully starting here pretty soon.
So those recordings. Alright, so the lightning round Okay, okay,
if you remember, there's a lot of pressure you have
to these are one word answers. You can't think, and
there's one of them. I think that you're going to
try and like fudge around. So you know, we'll see,
we'll see how you see how this goes. Okay, I'm ready. Okay,
(23:59):
So one has to do with music and one does
not have to do with music. You are a very
multitalented musician. You play a lot of instruments. You have
played a lot of instruments, but guitars certainly your expertise.
If you did not play the guitar, which instrument would
you want to play? Drums? Really sure? I started on
(24:21):
drums before I was a guitar player. I was a
drummer and I took two guitar playing as well. In fact,
I liked every instrument in the band. But um the
reason that I became a guitar player rather than a
drummer really was because my best buddy in junior high
school was a better drummer than I was and had
(24:42):
this impressive double double drum set right to bass drums too,
toms to floor toms, a million symbols. It was all black.
And I had this simple, little five piece red sparkle
Roger set. And he was very flashy. Uh, the son
of Chloris Leachman, the great late or Speech Leachman. His
name was Brian England and I miss him greatly, and
(25:05):
that's the reason I moved over to I just said, okay,
then I'll play guitar because he had a flash ear
drum set exactly. Wow. Well, I think the world is
happy you moved over to guitar. It's been fun. What
can I say, less stuff the lug around too. Yeah,
I know that that is definitely true. Alright, So the
question that has nothing to do with music setting the stage.
(25:26):
You're headed on vacation in the United States, right, we're
not going overseas. I am you are. Do you fly
or drive? I drive whenever possible. I'm itching for a
road trip. Drive nice, nice, even if it's like twenty hours. Yeah,
break it up, nice, make a mixed tape. You know,
(25:47):
see the country. That's right. I love it. Nice and nice. Okay, well,
very good. So that's it for today for the after show.
For the Chuck Level after show, Thank you, Chuck Level.
Thank you so much, Chuck Level again for an amaze
using interview. We love you to death and we will
be back next week. I love you, Chuck. That was
really fun. All right, see you later, Brian. Okay, bye,
(26:09):
many Thank you everyone for listening. On Tour and After
Show our productions of I Heart Radio and Black Barrel Media.
(26:30):
This show is produced by me Mandy Wimmer with executive
producer Noel Brown. For more information about on Tour, visit
our website black Barrel Media dot com. From behind the
scenes photos from these interviews, and to interact with us,
visit our social media at on Tour pod on Facebook, Instagram,
and Twitter. For more shows from I Heeart Radio and
(26:50):
Black Barrel Media, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you get your podcasts. M
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