“We wish to attempt to assist farmers if we are able to,” says Nelson. “And 33 years later, we’re nonetheless making an attempt to assist.”
Willie Nelson is pissed off.
For greater than three many years, Nelson has fought for the survival of America’s household farmers, staging the primary Farm Aid profit live performance in 1985 with John Mellencamp and Neil Young, and later welcoming Dave Matthews to the trigger.
Backstage on the 33rd annual Farm Aid profit live performance on the Xfinity Theatre in Hartford Saturday (Sept 22), aboard his tour bus, Nelson held a espresso mug and evenly described his anger with the financial and political the explanation why the plight of household farmers is “just as bad today as it was 33 years ago — if not worse.”
Farm Aid’s 4 headliners have been joined Saturday by one of the spectacular lineups to play the profit in years: Chris Stapleton, Sturgill Simpson, Kacey Musgraves, Margo Price, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real, Jamey Johnson, Ian Mellencamp and Particle Kid — a invoice that led this yr’s occasion to promote out in 4 hours when the present was introduced in June.
The Hartford present befell 33 years to the day that the primary Farm Aid was staged in Champaign, Ill., on Sept. 22, 1985.
“You would think, after that many years, something would be done and their problems would be solved or at least an attempt [made] to solve them,” Nelson says, “and I haven’t seen anything to suggest that. Because there are a lot of people who don’t care, you know? A lot of people are making a lot of money and big corporations could care less about the small family farmer. In fact, the sooner they get rid of them happier they’ll be.”
Farmers this yr are taking the brunt of a number of insurance policies of the Trump administration. A commerce struggle with China has prompted that nation to announce a retaliatory 25 % tariff on U.S. exports, together with soy, corn, wheat, cotton, beef, pork and extra. New immigration insurance policies threaten the power of farmers to search out staff to reap their crops. And federal inaction on local weather change comes within the face of more and more frequent, intense storms and hurricanes.
For household farmers, the present presidency has “been rather disastrous,” says Nelson.
“Washington is not doing one damn thing to help the small family farmer. In fact, they’re doing everything they can to put him out of business; that’s their objective. And so we have a fight on our hands,” says the singer, including a characteristically zen-like coda to his feedback: “And that’s cool.”
Nelson’s dedication to Farm Aid is hands-on. The group reported that calls got here in to its disaster hotline in current days from dairy farmers in disaster in three completely different states. For emergency grants, delivered through allied organizations, Nelson indicators the checks. “Every one,” he says. As artists ready to carry out in Hartford, three checks went out with Connecticut postmarks.
Nelson, after all, additionally continues a thriving recording and touring profession. Many of the artists on the Farm Aid invoice have been a part of Nelson’s summer season Outlaw Music Festival Tour. And on Sept. 7, simply 5 months after Nelson’s earlier album Last Man Standing, he launched My Way, decoding the songs first recorded by his pal Frank Sinatra.
Many artists embrace a trigger, stage a profit — then transfer on.
“I guess it would be easier, you know,” says Nelson. “But that’s not what we want to do. That’s not what we’re about. We want to try to help if we can. And 33 years later, we’re still trying to help. We’re trying to convince everybody that it’s important that they shop farm-to-market, that they help their local farmers and and people are getting more and more educated in that respect.”
At a press convention that preceded the day’s performances, Farm Aid organizers launched Connecticut farmers who described their hardships. But in addition they introduced the tales of younger activists who share Farm Aid’s aim of making a sustainable meals system.
At the press convention, Mellencamp angrily denounced the affect of huge firms on how America’s meals is grown and referred to as for a political response. “We’ve got to get the right people representing us and have your voices heard, not corporate America’s voices heard,” he mentioned. “You’ve got to get out and vote.”
Nelson agrees. “Yeah, you’ve got to vote,” he says. “If you care, you’ve got to vote.”
“In fact,” Nelson says, describing a current recording session with sons Lukas and Micah, “I’ve got a new song me and the boys [will] put out, called `Vote `Em Out.’”
“If you don’t like who’s in there, vote `em out
That’s what election day is all about
And the largest gun we’ve bought is known as the poll field
So for those who don’t like who’s in there, vote ’em out.”
“I’m finishing it up in a couple of days,” says Nelson. “So it’ll be out pretty quick.”
