By Thom Duffy
Here are the best things we saw and heard as Farm Aid celebrated family farming with more than 12 hours of music in Minneapolis.
Farm Aid 40, held Saturday (Sept. 20) in Minneapolis and headlined by founding musicians Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and Neil Young, is expected to be the most successful benefit for family farmers by the organization in many years, as sales of 36,232 tickets at Huntington Bank Stadium are added to contributions solicited on air during a five-plus-hour broadcast of the event on CNN.
But for Neil Young, it won’t be enough.
“It’s one of the highlights of my life to have been part of this,” said Young, flanked by Nelson and Mellencamp, and joined by fellow Farm Aid board members Dave Matthews and Margo Price, at Farm Aid’s morning press conference.
“That said, there’s one thing that really strikes me about this day. And what I would like to say is, we need money so we can give it to the farmers and support the farmers. And we need to get it from these big corporations and billionaires that have taken all the farmers’ land or a great portion of it.”
“We want donations from them,” said Young. “Huge donations to Farm Aid. We don’t want to give them favors. They bought hundreds and thousands of acres of farmland in this country as investments. And they’re living the good life. They need to stand up and pay a conscience tax to the farmers of America!”
The 40th anniversary of Farm Aid and its mission — to build and strengthen a family farm-centered agricultural system in America that values family farmers, good food, soil, water, climate and strong communities — was celebrated Saturday with more than 12 hours of music.
In addition to Farm Aid’s board members, the remarkable bill included: Bob Dylan, Kenny Chesney, Billy Strings, Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, Lukas Nelson, Trampled by Turtles, Wynonna Judd, Steve Earle, Waxahatchee, Eric Burton of Black Pumas, Jesse Welles, Madeline Edwards and the Wisdom Indian Dancers.
When Willie Nelson launched Farm Aid in 1985, amid an economic crisis that was forcing family farms into bankruptcy, the organization recognized that the nation’s agriculture system was suffering from the consolidation of economic power and rise of corporate control. Forty years on, the same corporate forces affect almost every aspect of American life, from health care to housing to its news media.
Farmers, growing the nation’s food, saw the storm clouds first.
“We were kids when we started this thing,” said Mellencamp at the press conference. “We were young kids and we had ideals. We were so naive that we thought we would do one show and they’d pay attention to us.”
“Willie and I went to Washington, in front of the Senate subcommittee on farming. Willie talked and I talked and some f—ing senator stood up and goes, ‘Where’s your guys’ guitars?’ I looked at Willie and I said, ‘Let’s get the hell outta here.'”
The tone in Washington, D.C., has hardly improved over Farm Aid’s 40 years. It weighed on Margo Price’s mind before her performance.
“It’s so important for us to come together, right now, in America,” she said. “We’re being divided. We’re being distracted. Our voices are being silenced. And apathy isn’t it. They want us to be overwhelmed. They want us to be fighting with each other so we don’t realize that it’s the people in power that are making all of these things terrible. We have to use our voice while we still have it. Shared struggle builds solidarity and hope is an act of resistance. Keep fighting.”
“Shared struggle” is the perfect way to describe Farm Aid’s forty years of activism to support family farmers. With fans traveling from cities or farms, red states or blue states, Farm Aid on Saturday night in Minneapolis may well have been the most politically diverse — yet unified — place in America.
Here are best things we saw and heard at Farm Aid 40:
Showing Up Early
Farm Aid activists know to show up early for each year’s festival — several days early. This year, on Thursday (Sept. 18), a night of music was curated for invited guests by Rissi Palmer, recipient of the Lift Every Voice Award from the Academy of Country Music. On Friday (Sept. 19), the annual farmer forum was billed as “Seeding Democracy From Our Fields to Our Future” and included a a keynote address from Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. And Friday evening saw the presentation of the annual Spirit of Farm Aid awards to organization supporters.
“You Are Not Alone”
Stepping outside the Farm Aid Eve celebration Friday night to talk, David Senter, founder and president of the American Agriculture Movement and a Farm Aid historian, was asked: after 40 years, does Farm Aid matter? “It matters because those family farmers that are still out there struggling need to know that they’re not alone,” he replied. He noted that Farm Aid brings together scores of activist organizations from across the nation. “It’s like rolling out a neutral stage where when you find issues you agree on, where everybody can speak in a unified voice.” In a divided nation, “that’s important right now, isn’t it?” In April, Senter and Nelson co-wrote “A Letter to Young Farmers,” published on the Farm Aid website. “We are determined to prevent the corporate takeover of all food production, making sure there is opportunity for independent farmers and ranchers on the land,” they wrote. “The farmer’s role is essential and well worth fighting for. We want you to know you are not alone. We stand with you and are here to support you because you are the future of family farm agriculture.”
The Rising Stars
For Farm Aid’s opening sets, organizers have long had unerring skill at presenting artists whom fans might have only heard in smaller venues. Saturday was no exception, with country singer/songwriter Madeline Edwards showcasing her compelling new album Fruit; Eric Burton of Black Pumas offering a soulful, solo set; and Waxahatchee, the ensemble created by frontwoman Katie Crutchfield, playing songs from its most recent release, Tigers Blood. But the Farm Aid debut of shaggy-haired firebrand Jesse Welles was a moment no one will forget. One of the sharpest satirists and topical songwriters to emerge in years, Welles drew a standing ovation for his set including “War Isn’t Murder.”
Wynonna’s Winning Return
Wynonna Judd wanted to know how many in the audience had not previously seen her in concert. Many cheered to show they had not. “It’s about fricking time!” she shouted back. In the mid ’80s, when Farm Aid began, Wynonna and her mother, Naomi (as the Judds) were one of the hottest acts in country music. In more recent years, Wynonna had experienced personal setbacks and tragedies that made her onstage comment — “music is a healer” — resonate all the more. Still instantly recognizable with her fiery red hair, her set drew from her solo career. But she sang hits from the Judds, including “Rhythm of the Rain” and “Why Not Me,” and the decades disappeared.
String Fever
Two of the finest bluegrass-influenced acts on the scene today played late afternoon and early evening sets, respectively. Trampled by Turtles, whose latest album is a collaboration with Alan Sparhawk of the indie act Low, were the home state favorites, hailing from Duluth, Minn. Billy Strings, meanwhile, who won a Grammy Award earlier this year for album Live Vol. 1, has been part of Willie Nelson’s sprawling, inclusive, musical family since the two recorded “California Sober” in 2023.
Coming Back From Copperhead Road
With his long, gray beard and black garb, Steve Earle looked every bit the renegade he had been earlier in his life as he greeted the afternoon crowd. “This is my first Farm Aid in a while,” said Earle. He first appeared at the festival when it took place just outside of Austin, Texas, in 1986, the same year he released his acclaimed debut album, Guitar Town. That song opened his set Saturday. Actually, it was the first of two solo sets he played while the stage was prepared for bands on the bill. For his second set, he brought out his mandolin for “The Galway Girl” and his classic “Copperhead Road.”
Artists Tackle Farming Topics
Homegrown Village is Farm Aid’s offstage area for attendees to view exhibits that connect with farming, food and rural culture — and, increasingly, issues of climate and economics. And artists take part. During the day, Nathaniel Rateliff took part in discussions of ways to make farms economically sustainable, Margo Price talked about climate and conservation in Minnesota, and Jesse Welles took on the topic of corporate power in agriculture.
The Gospel According to Nathaniel
In a late afternoon set, Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats took the stage — and took no prisoners. Wearing a hat emblazoned with the logo of the American Agriculture Movement, and a well-worn red T-shirt declaring “Stop Factory Farms,” Rateliff led his band through a horn-fired, organ-pumping, gospel-shouting set of R&B which has ignited Farm Aid crowds for years, with favorites like “S.O.B” and “I Need Never Get Old.” Including Saturday’s set, Rateliff and the band have played at Farm Aid four times in the past eight years.
Lukas, Dave and Sierra
The early evening set from Lukas Nelson brought two delightful collaborations. No longer playing with his electric band Promise of the Real, accompanied solely by standup bass and violin, Nelson welcomed Dave Matthews to sing Daniel Lanois’ mystical song “The Maker.” Then Nelson introduced “a great rising talent” as Sierra Ferrell — who has just been named artist of the year for the second time by the Americana Music Association — dueted with him on “Friend in the End.”
No Shoes in the Farmyard
Taking place in one of the largest venues that it has played in years, Farm Aid may well have filled Huntington Bank Stadium without the late addition to the bill of Kenny Chesney, who’s the third hottest touring act of 2024, according to Billboard Boxscore, and just finished a residency at The Sphere in Las Vegas. But his participation certainly didn’t hurt Saturday’s ticket sales. Another repeat Farm Aid supporter — he last played the festival in 2012 — Chesney’s set proved the festival’s community would readily embrace his No Shoes Nation.
Margo, Billy and Jesse
The affection among Farm Aid performers is undeniable, and the result is often memorable collaborations. During her set, Margo Price welcomed Billy Strings and Jesse Welles to sing, first a capella, then with Price’s powerful full band, a version of Bob Dylan’s 1965 classic “Maggie’s Farm.” (This was the song that opened Dylan’s surprise Farm Aid set in Noblesville, Indiana, in 2023). But Price’s sharp sense of history was even more evident when she covered Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos),” a lament for Mexican farm workers who died in a plane crash in 1948 after picking crops in California and went unidentified for decades. The relevance to an era of border-crossing rhetoric and federal raids on immigrants was unmistakable.
“Peace on Earth”
A longtime Farm Aid fan followed a tradition during the acoustic set that Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds played at the festival, venturing to a point in the venue as high up and far back as possible. From that vantage point, the duo’s musicianship on songs like “Don’t Drink the Water,” “Crush” and “Ants Marching” flowed like entrancing waves across the crowd below. For Saturday’s set, Matthews welcomed violinist Jake Renick Simpson from Lukas Nelson’s band, and he played new song “Peace on Earth,” which he first unveiled in May, with intriguing, but ambiguous lyrics.
“Blood on the Plow”
John Mellencamp boasts the greatest number of top 40 hits of any of Farm Aid’s board members. So his set Saturday, like those of recent years, was a crowd pleaser, from “Small Town” to the sing-along of “Jack and Diane.” But Mellencamp also sang the melancholy and moving “Longest Days,” an album track from his 2008 set Life, Death, Love and Freedom. And the highlight of his live set, as always at Farm Aid, is the harrowing “Rain on the Scarecrow,” which, more than any other song, captures the heartbreak of the farming crisis.
Dylan Brings It All Back Home
It’s hard to overstate the significance of the late addition to the Farm Aid bill of Bob Dylan, native of Hibbing, Minnesota. It was Dylan whose offhand remark at Live Aid in July 1985 led Willie Nelson to launch Farm Aid, what has become music’s longest running concert for a cause. It was here in Minneapolis that Dylan briefly attended the University of Minnesota, before heading east to Greenwich Village. (It was also here that he returned in December 1974 to re-record tracks for Blood On the Tracks.) On a darkened stage, behind a piano and wearing a hoodie, Dylan opened his set with “All Along the Watchtower.” Songs like that one and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” received dramatic but engaging rearrangements. And in an apparent acknowledgment of his roots, he sang the seldom performed “Highway 61 Revisited,” inspired by the road that traverses Minnesota enroute to the Mississippi Delta.
Neil Young’s Chords of Anger
In the penultimate set at Farm Aid, Neil Young unleashed a sonic maelstrom. Playing with his new band the Chrome Hearts, the worthy successors to Crazy Horse, Young began with his newly penned protest song “Big Crime” that takes direct aim at Washington, D.C. “Rockin’ in the Free World” followed, then the soft lament of “Long Walk Home,” with its lyric “America, America/ Where have we gone?” It was notable that Young included a powerhouse, electric version of “My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue),” which he performed acoustically at the first Farm Aid in 1985. A heartfelt “Old Man” closed his set. Young, who has frequently spoken of the Farm Aid cause from the stage, said: “This Is the time when people and the farmers have got to come together as never before.”
A Closing Kiss to Farm Aid Fans
From the always-expected opening chords of “Whiskey River,” Willie Nelson, now 92, gave the audience the performance they’d been waiting for all day. Seated and flanked by his sons, Lukas and Micah, Nelson offered classics that have made him an American icon, like “On the Road Again” and “Georgia on My Mind.” He duetted with Hawaiian singer Lily Meola on “Will You Remember Me.” With Lukas, he traded lines on Pearl Jam’s “Just Breathe” that transformed it into a song of love between father and song. And to his seldom-shifting set list, he once again added his version of Tom Waits’ “Last Leaf” with its elegiac lyric: “I’ll be here through eternity/ If you wanna know how long / If they cut down this tree/ I’ll show up in a song.” Almost every artist on the Farm Aid bill came onstage for the traditional encores of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” “I’ll Fly Away,” “I Saw The Light,” “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die” and “It’s Hard to Be Humble.” Then, rising from his chair at center stage and walking slowly away from the other musicians as his band played on, Nelson turned once more to the crowd. Lifting his outstretched fingers to his lips, he threw a closing kiss to the audience of Farm Aid 40.
NYA Thanks Billboard!
