The first Farm Aid began at 9:45 on the morning of Sunday, September 22, 1985. Before the big names, before the speeches, before the long day of rock and country, Willie Nelson and Neil Young stepped out at Memorial Stadium in Champaign, Illinois, greeted the crowd and sang “Are There Any More Real Cowboys?”
That morning, a downpour soaked the stadium. According to the Champaign County History Museum’s account of the day, Nelson kept right on performing as the rain drenched the crowd, and it did not let up until early afternoon. About 80,000 people had come anyway. Official counts put the crowd somewhere between 78,000 and 80,000, plus around 1,200 reporters.
A remark at Live Aid and a stadium with no stage
The whole thing started with a few words from Bob Dylan. On stage at Live Aid that July, Dylan wondered aloud whether a little of the money raised for famine relief might go to American farmers paying off their mortgages. Willie Nelson took the idea seriously. He had heard farmers describe their struggles firsthand on the road, and he brought in Neil Young and John Mellencamp to help.
Illinois Governor Jim Thompson offered the University of Illinois football stadium. The organizers then had six weeks. Andy Green, one of the core organizers, later told Illinois Public Media that the stadium had no stage, not enough electrical power and no clear sense of how many people it could hold. By show day, more than 50 acts were on the bill.
Why that song, on that morning
“Are There Any More Real Cowboys?” was brand new. Neil Young wrote it, and it appeared on his country album Old Ways, released in August 1985. Willie Nelson sang and played guitar on the recording, and the two had put it out as a single earlier that same month.
The song mourns the loss of real cowboys and, with them, traditional country and family values. Sung to open a benefit for families who were losing their farms, it landed differently. That’s the part that stays with you. The question in the title was no longer about cowboys in a song. It was about the people standing in the stands.
The downpour
The rain turned the field into mud. Thousands stood on the football turf while tens of thousands more filled the bleachers. People wore garbage bags as raincoats and held cardboard boxes and blankets over their heads. One fan, Kara Garner Silge, later told the University of Illinois Alumni Association that she sat on the bleachers through the rain so she wouldn’t miss a single act.
When the rain finally stopped in the afternoon, the Beach Boys brought the crowd to its feet.
Who was standing out there
This was not only a crowd of music fans. The Des Moines Register sponsored a train that carried about 500 Iowa farmers from Carroll, Iowa, to Champaign the day before the show, to make sure farming itself stayed at the center of the day.
They were living through the worst stretch for American agriculture since the Great Depression. Inflation and falling exports were pushing family farmers off their land, and many lost their homes along with their farms. In Iowa alone, the state’s own historians note, the number of farms fell by roughly a quarter over the course of that decade.
Fourteen hours later
The music lasted about 14 hours. Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Roy Orbison, B.B. King, Bob Dylan and dozens more took their turns. The night closed around 1 a.m. with fireworks, and by the museum’s count it marked Willie Nelson’s fifth time on stage that day.
Farm Aid reports that the first concert raised more than $7 million; some accounts put the total closer to $9 million. Just as important, the phone line set up for the show was soon flooded with calls, from donors and from farmers asking for help. The money went to groups that gave emergency grants to farm families, provided crisis services and gave legal help to people facing foreclosure.
Farm Aid has since raised more than $85 million for family farmers. And on April 29, 2023, his 90th birthday, Willie Nelson stood on stage at the Hollywood Bowl beside Neil Young and Stephen Stills and sang “Are There Any More Real Cowboys?” one more time.