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Happy 93rd Birthday Week to Family Farm Defender Willie Nelson
- Bob Benenson
- 1 hour ago
- 3 min read
This Hero's Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys — and Farmers
I am seldom a fanboy. In fact, I rather loathe the celebrity culture that is the preoccupation of so many people today.
But Willie Nelson — the country music legend who turned 93 last Wednesday — is an exception.
Surely, I appreciate and respect Willie's legacy as a songwriter and performer. Willie isn't kidding when he sings "the life I love is making music with my friends" from his 1980 song On the Road Again. He is still touring: His Outlaw Festival concert is coming to my hometown of Chicago in August.
At the September 2025 concert marking the 40th anniversary of the Farm Aid non-profit that he co-founded, Willie walked onstage for his finale set at about 11 p.m. with the slowed gait of a man into his 10th decade of life... then performed non-stop for more than an hour.
But Willie's place in my small group of heroes is much more about the historic role he has played as an advocate and defender of the nation's diminished population of small family farmers, many of whom have faced existential challenges since the rise of the "conventional" food system that has encompassed the post-World War II era.
Willie Nelson came to this cause naturally, having grown up on a farm in rural Abbott, Texas. When a devastating rural economic crisis hit in the 1980s, Willie joined with fellow music stars Neil Young and John Mellencamp to hold a benefit concert in Champaign, Illinois.
The event, fashioned after the Live Aid concerts that raised funds for international food relief earlier that year, was meant to be a one-off. But even as the immediate farm crisis waned, family farmers have continued to be challenged by the rise to dominance of the conventional food system underpinned by the concentration and corporatization of farmland.
The organization has continued its powerful advocacy role, which includes the pursuit of a healthier, more sustainable, fairer and more humane food system. The Farm Aid non-profit organization last week announced that this year's Farm Aid 41 Festival will be held the last weekend in September, with an announcement about the location coming next month.
Willie's Outlaw Festival has scheduled 12 concerts around the U.S., including the August 25 event at Chicago's Huntington Bank Pavilion on Northerly Island.
That is the same venue where, in September 2015, I attended my first Farm Aid Festival. This inspirational event helped cement my transition as an advocate for a better food system.
I didn't make my Farm Aid return until 2023, near Indianapolis, by which point I was deeply engaged in my second career. The experience was so immersive that I decided that this would be the one event to which I would travel each year for as long as I can — which took me to Saratoga Springs, New York in 2024 and Minneapolis last year for the massive 40th anniversary Festival held in University of Minnesota's football stadium.
Thank you to Willie Nelson, and may you be on the road again for more years to come.