John Denver & Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

John Denver performs "Thank God I'm A Country Boy" with The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band at Farm Aid in Champaign, Illinois on September 22, 1985.

A performance from the first Farm Aid benefit concert. Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp founded Farm Aid and serve on the board of directors. The three agreed that family farmers were in dire need of assistance and decided to plan a concert for America. The show was put together in six weeks and was held on September 22, 1985 in Champaign, Illinois before a crowd of 80,000 people. It raised over $9 million for America's family farmers. Performers included Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, B.B. King, Loretta Lynn, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty and many more.

Dave Matthews joined Farm Aid's Board of Directors in 2001 to help further Farm Aid's mission of keeping family farmers on their land.

For more, visit http://www.farmaid.org/youtube

Comments

8 years ago

Sheri Jolly

Sounded fine live! Long day hell of a concert.

9 years ago

James Willmus

The sound engineer needed to be fired. It wasn't just this, but a lot of the songs from other artists also got screwed up at that concert.

9 years ago

Paul A

Sound is f'd up

9 years ago

Maruschka Galina

I love it! YEAH!

9 years ago

Jarka Királyová

perfect performance and a violin solo, but i´m still missing a banjo sound here :)

9 years ago

epictetusepicurus1

Thank god for John Sommers

10 years ago

MsClyde57

Nothing worse than a dozy mixer man. Surely he could see that guy was going to play a fiddle solo. This happens so often.

10 years ago

AnEvening1

Our John Denver tribute band has several version of our own cover of this amazing song on our channel. Check it out today! anevening1

10 years ago

Dennis Curtis

Audio sucks.

10 years ago

Niklas Enblom

RIP John Denver!!

10 years ago

Rowdy The Redneck

Crawl brought me here! Billy Ray Cyrus eat your heart out

10 years ago

zymurgist63

I went to the last Orioles game of the 2013 season yesterday. Got on the big screen doing the "Country Boy" dance during the 7th inning stretch. Good times.

10 years ago

Jean-C Chiasson

Thomas you are not alone. Only now have I started to appreciate his style.

10 years ago

jjw2795

He does look like the croc hunter, except that Denver in his later years are missing his trademark glasses.

10 years ago

Baughb Baughbson

Ladies and gentlemen now at bat for the Orioles...

10 years ago

Kurt Knutsen

thank god!

10 years ago

silverdrumvideo

I've never seen any drummer play with their hi-hat positioned so far up like that...

10 years ago

Johann Binder

i love this song. where is the video fronm the "schwiegersohn junior"? pleas said me at [email protected] thanks

10 years ago

Coricans

Looks like steve irwin

10 years ago

Thomas Buchanan

In retrospect, I realize I never appreciated him as much as I should have. People would criticize his hair, glasses, enthusiasm...as if rock stars were the paragons we should try to emulate! Even though I might not have admitted to liking him them, I did....and I miss him and respect him now.