Bob Dylan Joins Willie Nelson’s Farm Aid 40 Lineup in Minneapolis

Bob Dylan has joined the all-star roster of Farm Aid 40 taking spot Saturday (Sept. 20) astatine Huntington Bank Stadium successful Minneapolis, the festival organizers person announced.

Dylan volition beryllium featured connected the measure headlined by Farm Aid’s guiding committee members — Nelson, John Mellencamp, Neil Young, Dave Matthews and Margo Price — on with Kenny Chesney, Billy Strings, Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, Lukas Nelson, and more. 

Also connected the lineup volition beryllium Trampled by Turtles, Wynonna Judd, Steve Earle, Waxahatchee, Eric Burton of Black Pumas, Jesse Wells, Madeline Edwards and the Wisdom Indian Dancers.

Dylan, who has been touring with Willie Nelson this summertime arsenic portion of the Outlaw Music Festival, past played the Farm Aid signifier successful Noblesville, Indiana connected Sept. 23, 2023, arsenic a astonishment guest.

As Farm Aid marks 4 decades of advocacy for America’s autarkic household farmers, Dylan’s beingness connected the festival lineup resonates deeply.

It was Dylan, from the Philadelphia signifier of the Live Aid payment for African famine alleviation connected July 13, 1985, who made the off-hand comment:  “I anticipation that immoderate of the wealth that’s raised for the radical successful Africa, possibly they tin conscionable instrumentality a small spot of it—maybe 1 oregon 2 million, maybe—and usage it, say, to wage the mortgages connected immoderate of the farms that the farmers present beryllium to the banks?”

Willie Nelson aboriginal recalled to Billboard, “The question deed maine similar a ton of bricks.” With the impossibly abbreviated pb clip of six weeks, Nelson staged the archetypal all-star Farm Aid performance successful Champaign, Ill., connected Sept. 22, 1985.

Dylan was among the singular lineup of state and stone musicians who played that precise archetypal Farm Aid, alongside Johnny Cash, John Fogerty, Don Henley, Billy Joel, Loretta Lynn, Roy Orbison, Bonnie Raitt and galore more—including the Tom Petty, who died successful 2017, and Petty’s band, the Heartbreakers.  

Dylan’s aboriginal engagement with Farm Aid led to 2 different important collaborations, with Tom Petty and, subsequently, the Traveling Wilburys.

At Farm Aid successful 1985, Dylan performed with Petty and the Heartbreakers. “At that time, Tony Dimitriades, Tom’s manager, was successful a concern business with [the late] Elliot Roberts successful Lookout Management” who represented Dylan, recalled Bill DeYoung, a euphony critic, writer and Petty historian, successful a 2017 interrogation with Billboard.  DeYoung for galore years worked astatine the Gainesville Sun, the paper successful Petty’s Florida hometown.  

“Dylan needed a set for the archetypal Farm Aid,” says DeYoung. “Everything other sprang from that.”

“Everything else” included the True Confessions Tour that Dylan and Petty launched unneurotic aboriginal the pursuing year, successful February 1986, during which the Heartbreakers backed Dylan for immoderate 60 shows successful Australia, Japan and the United States — including 2 nights astatine RFK Stadium successful Washington, D.C. and 3 nights astatine Madison Square Garden.

The singers besides performed at...