Leavell makes history with Rolling Stones during Cuba show

Their music was banned from the communist-run country for decades, but Rolling Stones keyboardist Chuck Leavell was part of history when the band performed in Havana, Cuba, last month.

"I've never seen so much joy in a crowd in all my life," Leavell said of the more than 500,000 people who gathered in an open field in Havana March 25. "The Rolling Stones enjoy first, and this is a first."

Leavell, who lives in Twiggs County, returned to Middle Georgia recently from touring Latin America and the Caribbean with the Stones.

The culminating performance in Cuba was planned shortly after President Barack Obama announced in December 2014 that the United States would make efforts to mend relations with the island nation through increased travel, commerce and flow of information.

The show was the first time the 63-year-old Leavell had been to Cuba. He remembered when he was a boy during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, crouching under his desk during emergency drills at school, "thinking that war could erupt in any moment."

"To have this experience now, to go and play rock 'n' roll music there and see how much they want this, how much they enjoy this, is ... an experience for the ages," said Leavell, who has also played with the Allman Brothers Band and Eric Clapton.

"Just the fact that now you can go to a Rolling Stones concert in Havana, that's just an awesome thing."

The set list for the concert included favorites such as "Jumpin' Jack Flash," "Paint It Black," "Brown Sugar" and "Gimme Shelter."

During his visit to Cuba, Leavell toured Old Havana and Revolutionary Square and saw plenty of older-model cars still on the road. Most Cubans he saw looked healthy, he said, but he witnessed "some pretty graphic poverty. ... It was disturbing to see some of that."

"Everyone's talking about, 'It's wonderful to see it at this juncture before all the changes happen.' Well, it's hard to say how fast that's going to be. ... I think it would be very interesting to go back periodically, two or three times, to see the changes that are being made."

While the circumstances are vastly different, Leavell said he experienced similar feelings in Cuba as he did performing with The Stones a year after the Berlin Wall came down. Posters around Berlin read "Tanks roll out, Stones roll in," Leavell recalled.

"There was this amazing feel of freedom in the air throughout eastern Europe," Leavell said. "Things are a little bit different because eastern Europe quickly opened up governmentally. Cuba is still a communist nation. ... The changes will be a lot slower there than they were back in that time, but they're coming. There's no doubt about it."

To contact writer Laura Corley, call 744-4334 and follow her on Twitter @Lauraecor.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated when President Obama announced U.S. plans to normalize relations with Cuba. That was in December 2014.

This story was originally published April 5, 2016 at 6:52 PM with the headline "Leavell makes history with Rolling Stones during Cuba show ."