WILLIE, FARMERS HAVE A TOUGH ROW TO HOE

Larry Eisenmenger, 44, loves Willie Nelson’s country music, but he won’t be attending Nelson’s star-studded Farm Aid benefit concert Sunday at the University of Illinois’ Memorial Stadium here. The farmer says he’s going through rough times financially--like so many others in his profession these days--so he’ll spend time in the fields harvesting corn.

Eisenmenger, who lives 20 miles south of this college town, wasn’t one of the numerous spokesmen brought in this week by the Illinois Farm Bureau to outline agricultural problems for the estimated 1,200 newspaper and TV reporters who have assembled here to cover the 14-hour concert. Nor was his farm included on the two-hour media tour scheduled today.

He and his father, Pete, 71, just happened to be at a processing plant in nearby Tuscola shortly after dawn Friday, dropping off a truckload of corn.

“I’m all for what Willie is doing,” Eisenmenger said above the noise of the corn tumbling from his truck onto a conveyor belt. “We’ve been trying to tell people in this country about our problems for years, but no one seemed to listen.

“So it’s great Willie decided to do something to help spread the word. It just strikes me as strange that a musician would see the situation more clearly than all the politicians. This is a real complex issue. I don’t know if anybody knows the answer.”

If other farmers questioned at the plant and in surrounding communities shared Eisenmenger’s sense of cautious reserve about Farm Aid, the mood in Champaign itself was upbeat.

Many residents, especially young rock fans, pointed with pride to the concert. They see it as a chance to take part in a small piece of history. “It’s amazing to think all those stars are going to be on one stage--this stage,” said Ronny Stonebock, 17, outside the stadium fence Friday.

The concert--inspired by the success of the July 13 Live Aid concert in London and Philadelphia--does represent the most impressive mixture of country and rock stars ever for a single show.

Spearheaded by Nelson, the 14-hour show will feature artists like Bob Dylan, the Beach Boys, John Fogerty, Merle Haggard, Don Henley, Billy Joel, John Cougar Mellencamp, Joni Mitchell, Randy Newman, Tom Petty, Kenny Rogers and Neil Young. Also among the more than 50 performers are three acclaimed new-breed Los Angeles acts--the Blasters, Lone Justice and X.

All 80,000 tickets have been sold for the concert, which will be televised from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Pacific time on cable TV via the Nashville Network, and from 5 to 8 p.m. in Los Angeles on KTLA Channel 5. The concert also will be simulcast locally on KLAC-AM.

Concert organizers hope to raise $50 million through ticket sales, corporate sponsorships and viewer donations. Nelson has said the money will be used to provide counseling and cash for financially ailing farmers and to help improve public awareness of the nation’s agricultural plight.

With all this activity under way here, there were signs of Farm Aid everywhere you went in town. Some of the enthusiasm seemed motivated by self-interest. The local Convention and Visitors’ Bureau boasted more than $1 million will be pumped into the business community by the influx of visitors here. Some restaurants were staying open Sunday for the first time in years. Several merchants saluted the cause with banners or billboards.

A bank in nearby Urbana parked a huge, 15-foot red combine (harvester) by its front door with a sign that read: “This piece of farm equipment cost the American farmer $107,565.00” to dramatize the expense of farming today. One theater brought back the feature film “Country,” which dramatizes the despair of a couple struggling to hold onto their farm. Proceeds from the showings were forwarded to Farm Aid.

“You’ve got to remember that 75% of the news in this town is agriculture,” said Randy Hawkins, the assistant director of personnel for the state of Illinois. “So when you put together a concert to help farmers with all these country and rock stars, you’re gonna get a lot of excitement.”

Just as Live Aid was primarily the vision of a single person, rock singer Bob Geldof, Farm Aid carries the stamp of Nelson. The singer was headed Friday for a concert tonight in Waterloo, Iowa, but he was on the phone to Farm Aid organizers repeatedly--and members of his tour organization overseeing last-minute details.

David Anderson, who has worked with Nelson for nearly a dozen years, said the singer began talking about a farm benefit after discussing the concept with musicians earlier this year at the “We Are the World” recording session. But things crystallized after Nelson heard Bob Dylan suggest helping farmers during the latter’s appearance in the Live Aid concert in Philadelphia.

“We never dreamed it would ever reach this proportion,” Anderson said, looking weary Friday from an around-the-clock schedule. “We were just going to invite some of our friends--Waylon (Jennings), Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Neil Young and Dylan.

“But then Willie talked to Illinois Gov. James Thompson and we ended up here. As soon as we started asking people to perform, they started suggesting others and it just snowballed.”

Anderson said Nelson knows the potential $50 million won’t make a dent in the billion-dollar farmers’ debt. But he just wants to get people working on a long-range solution.

“People just need to know what’s going on. I didn’t know that there was a farm problem until four weeks ago. Now I know that there are 600,000 farms owned by single families. And in the next six months 200,000 or more could be lost . . . .”