Photograph Courtesy of Farm Aid
Scarecrow. Countryman. Harvest. Those terms all have contexts agricultural, musical—and sociopolitical. More specifically, they constitute the titles of CDs from John Mellencamp, Willie Nelson, and Neil Young, the founders of Farm Aid, which comes this year to St. Louis.
That annual concert, which has benefited small farmers since 1985, will take the stage at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Maryland Heights on October 4.
“Farm Aid is more than a struggle about farms,” Nelson, who serves as president of the tax-exempt nonprofit behind the event, stated in a book commemorating its 20th anniversary. “It’s about the little guy versus the big guy, about the family farm versus the factory farm, and about the community versus the corporation.”
Joining Mellencamp, Young, and Nelson on the bill here will be Farm Aid’s fourth celebrity board member, Dave Matthews, and kinda-locals Wilco, as well as such other musicians as traditional-country singer/songwriter Jamey Johnson, Americana heartthrob Jason Mraz, and Phosphorescent (Athens, Ga.–based one-man band Matthew Houck).
Although this year’s concert marks Farm Aid’s Missouri debut, Mellencamp, Nelson, and Young staged the first one, in 1985, just three hours northeast of St. Louis, in Champaign, Ill. Their subsequent efforts on behalf of family farmers eventually sparked the passage of the Agricultural Credit Act; that 1987 piece of legislation authorized a multibillion-dollar financial-aid program for farmers and their lenders alike. On signing it, President Ronald Reagan only half-jokingly characterized agronomy as “a business that makes a Las Vegas crap table look like a guaranteed annual income.”
Over time, Farm Aid has raised more than $33 million for the cause. Last year, in the Boston suburb of Mansfield, Mass., the event (which traditionally also boasts concessions from family farms and other features) drew 20,000 attendees and lasted 11 hours.
In his doleful “Rain on the Scarecrow,” Mellencamp nicely summarized the plight of the small farmer. “The crops we grew last summer weren’t enough to pay the loan,” he rasped on that track from 1985’s Scarecrow. “Couldn’t buy the seed to plant this spring and the Farmers Bank foreclosed.” After 24 years, that song, that sentiment, and Farm Aid itself all remain, saddeningly, as germane as ever.
Tickets to Farm Aid start at $39. For more information about the event, visit farmaid.com. For ticket information, go to livenation.com, phone the Verizon box office (877-598-8703), or visit participating Blockbuster stores.
