Dave Matthews, Neil Young Announce Farm Aid

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Dave Matthews, Neil Young, Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp will head to Chicago this year for Farm Aid. The twentieth-anniversary concert, to be held at the Tweeter Center on September 18th, will wrap a weeklong series of events, including club shows and a film festival, in the city to benefit American farmers.

"It's good to be back in Illinois where it all started," Nelson said Monday at a press conference at Chicago's Grant Park. "This state is showing how good food can connect places like Champaign and Chicago. It inspires us to think about family farmers every day. I'm looking forward to playing on the Farm Aid stage, playing music with my friends."

Farm Aid, which began in Champaign in 1985, was the brainchild of Bob Dylan and spearheaded by Nelson and Mellencamp. The concerts have raised $27 million for family-owned American farms.

Tickets to this year's show go on sale July 30th. More performers will be announced in the coming weeks.

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Song Stories

“Everyday People”

Sly and the Family Stone | 1968

"Everyday People" managed to trailblaze in two different ways -- it was one of the first pop hits to deal with the subject of racial harmony, and it utilized Larry Graham's "slap" technique on the bass guitar, which would soon be copied by countless other bassists. Graham once said about his pulsating style, "I'd never done that before … that's where the freedom of creativity came in for the band, that we'd be allowed to do that." In 1978, the song's line "Different strokes for different folks" would be borrowed for the title of the hit television show Diff'rent Strokes.

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