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CNN Live Event/Special
Farm Aid 2026 Music Festival. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired September 26, 2026 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[19:00:00]
(MARGO PRICE PERFORMING "9 TO 5")
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
(MARGO PRICE PERFORMING "TENNESSEE SONG")
[19:05:00]
(MARGO PRICE PERFORMING "TENNESSEE SONG")
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
(MARGO PRICE PERFORMING "HARD HEADED WOMAN")
(MARGO PRICE PERFORMING "DON'T LET THE BASTARDS GET YOU DOWN")
[19:10:00]
(MARGO PRICE PERFORMING "DON'T LET THE BASTARDS GET YOU DOWN")
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR: She is so good. We'll have much more from Margo Price in a minute. Dave Matthews, John Mellencamp coming up. Stay with CNN and FARM AID 2026.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:16:32]
COATES: Welcome back to FARM AID 2026 on CNN. Let's go back to the stage and Margo Price.
(MARGO PRICE AND LOGAN LEDGER PERFORMING "LOVE ME LIKE YOU USED TO DO")
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
MARGO PRICE, MUSICIAN: Logan Ledger. We got just a couple more for you all. I'm going to do a song by the late, great John Prine.
(CHEERS)
PRICE: It says everything I want to say. Because we don't want war. We don't want data centers. This is "Your Flag Decal Won't Get You into Heaven Anymore."
(MARGO PRICE PERFORMING " YOUR FLAG DECAL WON'T GET YOU INTO HEAVEN ANYMORE ")
[19:20:00]
(MARGO PRICE PERFORMING " YOUR FLAG DECAL WON'T GET YOU INTO HEAVEN ANYMORE ")
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
PRICE: I'm going to get a couple friends out here to join me on this next tune. Please welcome to the stage, Jesse Wells and Dave Matthews.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
PRICE: I released an album on July 3rd. A bunch of covers that mean so much to me. This is a song that was written by Blaze Foley. And it's called "Oval Room."
(MARGO PRICE WITH DAVE MATTHEWS AND JESSE WELLES PERFORMING "OVAL ROOM")
[19:25:00]
(MARGO PRICE WITH DAVE MATTHEWS AND JESSE WELLES PERFORMING "OVAL ROOM")
PRICE: Jesse Welles, Dave Matthews, Logan Ledger, Alec Newman, (INAUDIBLE), Jeremy Ivey, Sean Thompson.
I'm Margo Price. God bless you, American farmers.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: That was Margo Price, joined by Dave Matthews and Jesse Welles as they covered "Oval Room." I got to say some serious musical chops there up on that stage.
COATES: Yes.
BERMAN: Yes. A pretty political message there if you're listening to the lyrics. But a lot of people in this crowd have a lot of feelings about the way farmers are being affected right now.
When we come back, we're going to go backstage to speak with Margo Price. Later, Dave Matthews returns to the stage with Tim Reynolds, then Neil Young, Willie Nelson, so much more.
Stay with CNN. This is FARM AID 2026.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:32:18]
BERMAN: I am John Berman here with Laura Coates and we are back at Farm Aid 2026. This is a CNN special event, I have to say really special.
COATES: Yes!
BERMAN: So Nathaniel Rateliff, you saw him earlier as he introduced Margo Price. He is a singer and songwriter whose energetic style blends folk and rock and blues. And he really is the newest member of the Farm Aid Board and he has also got a new album coming out in the spring. So here is Nathaniel Rateliff from his performance just a short time ago.
(NATHANIEL RATELIFF PERFORMANCE)
[19:36:27]
COATES: Wow! What a moving performance.
I want to go live backstage to CNN's Bill Weir with another Farm Aid Board member Margo Price, who electrified this arena with her performance just a few minutes ago.
BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely! And I knew -- I had a hunch this woman was going to pay tribute to the late, great Dolly Parton and she did with "9 to 5." Great to see you.
MARGO PRICE, SINGER-SONGWRITER: Great to see you, too.
I mean, Dolly Parton forever, right?
WEIR: What a raucous set that was and you ended with "Oval Room" for those in the know is a Blaze Foley, the late, great Boston songwriter, a protest song written in the age of Reagan, but it holds up it looks like for your crowd.
PRICE: I think it is really fitting for what is going on now. It is eerily spot on, and I've been playing that song all over the United States, and it has been bringing me so much hope, just to see how many people are with me.
You know, it doesn't matter if I am in the North, the South, out West, in the Midwest, people are hungry for change.
WEIR: And your new album is almost exclusively protest songs. Theres a Woody Guthrie song on there. There is -- "Deportees," which actually Dolly covered right on the "9 to 5" album about when we treat people as deportees. Why was it important -- how did this album come about?
PRICE: Well, I just kind of started singing these songs because, you know, I felt like it is really hard to capture what is going on, right -- about what is going on right now. I was going back to songs that were bringing me comfort and playing "Oval Room," playing "Deportees." Joan Baez sang on it with me. She has been such a great supporter and she has been just a guiding light for me as far as marrying activism and music together.
But I just -- I think that -- I think we need songs right now. Music is one of the things that can bring people together and heal hearts and minds and change minds and so yes, days of unrest put it out around July 3rd.
WEIR: And remind us of your roots to farm country and why we should be thinking of these folks here and from so many independent family farms.
PRICE: Yes. My family is three generations of farmers. And when I was young, back in 1985, my family lost the farm. I saw how devastating it was, how it impacted them. And so just being able to be here is such a full circle moment to be able to give back and, yes, we need it more today than ever.
I think, Farm Aid has been ahead of its time. It has never been more important to know where your food is coming from. You know, have problems with lettuce, have problems with blueberries. And, you've got to grow your own or find some local farmers, go to the local farmers market.
WEIR: Words of wisdom! Margo Price, thank you so much.
It looks like Dave Matthews, your fellow Farm Aid Board member, taking the stage right now.
DAVE MATTHEWS, SINGER-SONGWRITER: Everybody, thanks for being here. No matter what your politics, everybody that's here is here for the same reason and that's to support our farmers.
So, we should remember we want to take care of our farmers. We've got to stick together and find some solutions. Thank you all.
I hope you have a nice time.
(DAVE MATTHEWS PERFORMANCE)
(DAVE MATTHEWS AND TIM REYNOLDS PERFORMANCE)
[19:48:28]
COATES: When we come back, more from Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds, and later John Mellencamp, Neil Young and the one, the only, Willie Nelson.
Stick with CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:52:30]
BERMAN: All right, welcome back to Farm Aid 2026. We are here in Virginia Beach. John Berman with Laura Coates. We are loving this.
And there is so much more to come, including John Mellencamp.
COATES: And, you know, CNN's Kaitlan Collins recently sat down with the Farm Aid Founding Board member.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CORRESPONDENT: I know you've got
a big birthday coming up. When you think about what you're like as a kid, what you're like now -- do you feel like you're the same person?
JOHN MELLENCAMP, SINGER AND FARM AID FOUNDING BOARD MEMBER: Yes, I had not an interesting childhood. I had a wonderful childhood.
I started singing in rock bands when I was 12, started smoking when I was 11 or 10 and --
COLLINS: Went to jail when you were --
MELLENCAMP: I went to jail when I was young to find out I didn't want to go there again. And I had the prettiest girlfriend in town, and I loved growing up in that town.
COLLINS: "Small Town" is one of my favorites of your songs, and reading the lyrics of it, I mean, that's -- in your new book that's out with your lyrics and the songbook and -- I mean, it is poetry and I love poetry. And as you're reading through it, I wonder how you think of it when you're writing a song.
Do you view it as poetry yourself?
MELLENCAMP: I went through a stage where I was disliked by all the rock critics in my very beginning of my career. I figured out that to get past the critics not liking me, I had to go above their head, so I learned how to write pop songs like "Hurts So Good," you know, songs like that or "Ain't Even Done With the Night," you know, they were all pop songs.
And so it was a slow climb. I made like five albums before I had a hit record.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COATES: Everyone, Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds, they are still performing. I want to get back right to it.
MATTHEWS: There's a paper mill there and we called it Paper Town. One of the people from that town said to me, doesn't smell as much now, but they shut the paper mill down. It has been there for -- it has been the heart of the country for over a hundred years.
I mean, the heart of this town in the country for over a hundred years. And they didn't even know it was going to happen until somebody -- thought to themselves, I can make a little extra money if I close this place down and just like we have to look after our farmers, we have to look after each other too because we owe it to ourselves and to each other to take care of our communities.
[19:55:15]
And people that are vulnerable to being discarded. Anyway, I am not going to talk anymore, but there is a movie that's going to come out hopefully sometime called "Paper Town." And this song I wrote because of that little film about Canton, also called "Paper Town."
(DAVE MATTHEWS AND TIM REYNOLDS PERFORMANCE)
[20:00:00]
