“It was the biggest country music concert in history,” the Tribune wrote the day after the first Farm Aid on Sept. 22, 1985. “For more than 14 hours Memorial Stadium on the University of Illinois campus was transformed into Rockabilly Heaven before a rain-soaked but spirited crowd of about 78,000 and a national television audience estimated at more than 24 million.”
The event was the brainchild of country singer Willie Nelson, who was inspired by fellow musician Bob Dylan to hold a concert to raise money for American farmers.
Just as American farmers today are struggling to balance tariff uncertainty with dwindling overseas demand and high interest rates, “in the 1980s, family farmers faced a crisis the likes of which hadn’t been seen since the Great Depression,” explained Farm Aid on the subject of their history. “Plummeting farm product prices and land values, rising interest rates, troubled credit markets and unfair lending practices pushed tens of thousands of farms out of business, forcing millions of people off their land.”
With that rallying cry, Nelson, joined by Neil Young and John Mellencamp, quickly threw together an all-day concert in just six weeks to be held in Champaign. Fifty-five performers signed on with more waiting in the wings. “We’re in trouble if we keep losing farmers,” Nelson informed the public. “We can’t lose this important part of America.”
Along with founders Nelson, Young and Mellencamp, some of the most important names in music history shared the stage on that rainy day while the crowd stood on tarps spread over a pricey new artificial turf field — Johnny Cash, Joni Mitchell, Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, Billy Joel, Waylon Jennings, Loretta Lynn, Emmylou Harris, Kenny Rogers, Tom Petty, B.B. King, Alabama, Eddie Van Halen, Sammy Hagar and the Beach Boys.
“In the opening act, country singer Merle Haggard lamented the plight of the farmer with an emotionally charged rendition of ‘Amber Waves of Grain,’ ” the Tribune reported the following day.
Many farmers attended the concert, including Gary Ites, a 46-year-old farmer from Iowa Falls, Iowa. Ites said he lost 240 acres because of the slumping economy, and was upset that his son John, 19, recently gave up an attempt to start his own farm and joined the Army. “There are a lot of people who just aren’t aware how bad things are in the Midwest,” Ites said.
DeVon Woodland, then-president of the National Farmers Organization, echoed that sentiment. “Farmers have felt defeated,” Woodland said at the time. “They feel that nobody cares about their plight. Now they feel that somebody does care; the morale thing is most important.”
This year’s annual Farm Aid concert will be held Sept. 20, 2025, in Minneapolis with Nelson, Young and Mellencamp at the forefront. But now the trio is joined by newer faces such as Margo Price, Dave Matthews, Kenny Chesney, Waxahatchee and more.
