Photo credit: Courtesy of Getty Images
Once word got out that Oscar Winner Billy Bob Thornton and his band The Boxmasters were headlining a private show at The Hamilton on Friday night before the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, promoters and event organizers were inundated with requests for tickets and the opportunity to party mingle with the star later at Fiola Mare in Georgetown, DC. Organized by the Rolling Stones’ musical director Chuck Leavell and his partner in the Mother Nature Network Joel Babbit, it began a few years ago.
Chuck Leavell and Billy Bob Thornton
“We wanted to say thank you to the journalists that helped us early on with exposure for the Mother Nature Network,” Leavell told Hollywood on the Potomac. “We started by just having some little cocktail parties in New York and in Washington D.C., and then Joel came up with this idea. He said, ‘Why don’t we take it to the next level? Let’s do something that’ll create some fun, some fun energy.’ We talked about it, and as it turns out, there’s a lot of journalists that are musicians, so that idea came up. Let’s invite the journalists’ bands and put on a show, let them play. A lot of these bands, they may rehearse in a basement somewhere and they don’t often get a chance to play for the public, so we thought, well, this would be fun.” Among those bands is our local favorite Suspicious Package.
Suspicious Package
“The first one was pretty much just me sitting in with the journalists’ bands. The second one, I put together sort of an all-star band with my friend Mike Mills from R.E.M., and then from Paul Riddle, who is the former drummer of Marshall Tucker Band, and John Bell from Widespread Panic. This year, we said, ‘well, how can we keep moving forward and do something a little more interesting and fun?’ It turns out that Billy Bob Thornton is a friend of mine and we’ve known each other for a number of years. I said, ‘well, Billy’s got a band and they’re pretty dang good, so let’s see if he might be interested.’ Sure enough, we’re happy to have him.” So were we.
Leavell has a profound attachment to all things conservation and is hoping that the new administration will do the right thing as regards climate control – thus his connection to the Mother Nature Network. “I think there is some cause for concern about our environmental issues, but it’s still early in the administration. We’ll just have to see how things progress over the coming months to give a real assessment. I think there’s some encouraging signs that people like Ivanka Trump apparently do have a sensitivity to environmental concerns, so I think that can be positive. I think it’s also a positive that Sonny Perdue has finally been confirmed as agricultural secretary. I think he’ll be very good for Ag and forest interests and that sort of thing. It’s a mixed bag right now, but yeah, I think there is cause for concern. We don’t want to get out of the Paris Accords, in my opinion. We want to pursue alternative energy and renewable energy sources. We’ll see how that goes. I think, at this point, there’s just no turning back. All the rhetoric that can be attributed to some of these things, you’re not going to go back to coal and oil so much. I know Trump has talked about that, trying to support the coal miners, and I don’t see anything necessarily wrong with trying to help those people, but it’s just you’re not going to go back to that. We’re already going to be going towards solar and wind and, hopefully, biomass which I think, is another component of the renewable energy sources. Again, I think it’s a wait and see in reality and see how all this pans out.”
Chuck Leavell
Chuck walked us through his childhood: “I learned to play piano from my mother. I was the baby of the family and oftentimes just the two of us in the house. Mom was not a teacher or a professional, but I think it was often as a form of babysitting; she would get me on the stool and show me some simple things, and then just leave me to my own resources sometimes. Through those early years, I started sorting out the puzzle a little bit. As I got older, my cousin played guitar and taught me some things on the guitar. Then by the age of 13, I had my first band, growing up in Alabama, Tuscaloosa. We had a steady job playing at the YMCA every Friday night. Then when the first television station came to Tuscaloosa, they were looking for a Saturday morning musical program and they hired us. It became an enterprise for me at a young age and I just stuck with it through all these years.” Of course the rest is history from playing with The Rolling Stones as the principal keyboard player for 35 years.
The ladies of CNN goof it up.
“It’s just been a heck of a ride. They’re all individuals and different personalities, but I love each and every one of them. I love all the people that work with The Rolling Stones. What’s great about it for me is that it’s not on a constant basis and it gives me an opportunity to do my own records and do other events and projects and to work with other artists. Last year, for instance, I toured with David Gilmore, the principal voice and guitar for Pink Floyd. He’s an amazing individual, and we had a wonderful tour of Europe. I’ve been sitting in recently with Eric Church, who’s become a good friend. It works out great for me. When the band wants to work, then, of course, that’s my priority. The Allman Brothers was kind of my first very big break back in the early ’70s, ’72 is when I started playing with the band, and I’m happy to say that the first record I worked on with them is still their biggest selling record of all-time. The Brothers and Sisters record had a couple hits on it, Rambling Man and Jessica, so it was a wonderful opportunity back then. Then, through the years, the band has changed personnel, as we know. In ’82, I got the position with The Stones, but we remain very good friends. Of course, they announced their retirement a while back now, so I don’t think you’ll see any Allman Brothers Band anymore, but the history is there and the legacy is there and that’s a good thing.”
Photo credit: Brendan Kownacki
Billy Bob kept the momentum going by showing up at United Talent Agency late night event orchestrated by Kimball Stroud at the Georgetown Waterfront’s Fiola Mare where he chatted it up with CNN’s Dana Bash.
