The 35th annual Farm Aid Concert will be taking place tomorrow (Saturday, September 26) night in a different form than we have been used to seeing.  This year's event will be a virtual at home concert thanks to the Pandemic.

The 2020 Farm Aid Concert will be broadcast on AXS-TV, Serius XM Radio, and on the Farm Aid website and will air from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Central time. Last year Farm Aid distributed $228,000 in grant monies to organizations that aid farmers all over the country. In response to COVID-19, Farm Aid plans to create an emergency grant program this year to assist farmers in need.

This year's concert will feature some 20 acts including performances from Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp and Dave Mathews.  If you would like to donate to Farm Aid, go to: www.farmaid.org/donate.

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It is hard to believe that the very first Farm Aid Concert was held 35 years ago. The year was 1985 when Willie Nelson was joined by Bob Dylan, John Mellencamp and Neil Young for the first Farm Aid Concert which was held at Memorial Stadium in Champaign, Illinois.

 

The original concert idea came from Bob Dylan and was established to benefit American farmers who were struggling and in danger of losing their farms through mortgage debt. Some 80,000 people were on hand that first year to hear the four men play along with B.B. King, Roy Orbison, Billy Joel and others at the University of Illinois.

Several Quincy people were involved with putting that event on in Champaign that year. Were you one of them? The initial concert raised over $9 million for farmers in 1985.

 

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