Long-haired country outlaw Willie Nelson has dug his roots deep into the South over the past half-century, strumming away on his guitar while holding the honors of being the only country music idol significant enough to get away with wearing his long gray locks in braids. The country-infused hippie has contributed enormously to the age of traditional country music, and his involvement with the music-fueled farm and funds awareness program Farm Aid has also gained him a respectable following. While taking on the role as president of Farm Aid, Nelson recently reached out to newly-proclaimed president-elect Barack Obama, offering him the support and resources of Farm Aid.

In a letter from Nelson and Farm Aid to Obama this week, Nelson invited the president-elect to openly use Farm Aid as a resource for a revised farm and food policy for the nation, claiming, “Now is the time for our country to recognize and call on family farmers’ ingenuity, strength and value to our past and our future.” Obama’s stance on and claim for the restructuring of the nation was a hotspot for Nelson and Farm Aid, who are rising to the occasion by asking the democrat to input policies that support a family farm system of agriculture, easing the economic crisis the country is inevitably heading toward.

Nelson’s expertise in the area of family farms and agriculture comes from several years of living on the land, as the Texas native has lived in the country his whole life and has been the president of Farm Aid since he started the awareness program in 1985. Farm Aid is a musically-propelled program that includes other artists and board members Neil Young, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews, who all come together for a massive concert/festival every fall, raising money to support family farmers. Since Farm Aid’s inception in 1985, the program has raised more than $ 30 million that has gone to agriculture and promotion.

While it seems that Willie Nelson has started an empire (and maybe he has,) before the country outlaw was helping the nation raise money for a cause he was seeing more run-ins with the law that actually cost him money. The traditional country musician led the way to post-rock ‘n’ roll country music, becoming a celebrity in the mid-1970s for his honky tonk rock ‘n’ roll/roll music. Nelson played in bands from his youth and worked his way up the totem pole to Nashville, first writing songs for other artists and finally striking fame in the early ’60s with “Willingly” (a duet with then-wife Shirley Collie) and “Touch Me.” In the early 1970s, Nelson’s outlaw figure started taking form, and by 1975 Willie Nelson had become a household name, streaming into homes with the wildly popular cover of Roy Acuff’s “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” and the album The Red Headed Stranger. Since then, Nelson has garnered all sorts of awards from CMAs to Grammys and all sorts of Billboard number ones. The hit single “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” instantly became a Southern anthem in 1978, and Nelson’s friendships with Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson and Merle Haggard just kept the musician in motion.

Continuing onward with hits like “Always On My Mind” and “On the Road Again,” Willie Nelson has become one of the most worshipped figures in the country music realm. Despite a run-in with the IRS in 1990 that ended with a $ 16.7 million debt and an album entitled The IRS Tapes: Who’ll Buy My Memories?, Nelson has prevailed on the scene of traditional country music, still pumping out hit songs and albums while touring the country like the fearless and carefree country music artist he has always prided himself on being.