Texas Music News — July 29, 2026
Willie Nelson posted an open letter Tuesday urging his hometown of Abbott, Texas, to reject data centers spreading across rural Texas.
Nelson turns 93 next April, but the fight in him hasn’t slowed a bit. He grew up in Abbott, Texas, a farming community in Hill County about sixty miles south of Fort Worth. He still keeps land there, the kind where you can see stars at night.
On July 28, he posted a letter on social media. It read less like a press release and more like a sermon from the porch. “Our community, like many others, needs to fight against data centers invading our land,” Nelson wrote. “The last thing we need is a loud, water thieving, light polluting, data center anywhere near our town.”
A data center doesn’t ask a town’s permission. It shows up like a dust storm on the horizon, sudden and impossible to un-see once it’s parked there.
A Farm Aid Founder Draws the Line Again
Nelson co-founded Farm Aid forty years ago, and this letter reads like a continuation of that same fight. “The strength of rural America has never come from big industrial footprints,” he wrote. “It comes from generations of people, open spaces, local businesses, and a connection to the land.”
Texas has more than 248 planned data center projects on the books right now. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, no relation to Nelson’s hometown, has already floated a block on rural construction of his own. So when Willie Nelson adds his voice to the fight, people listen.
He closed the letter with a warning that sounded like something out of an old outlaw song. “Whoever controls food and water, controls the masses,” he wrote. “Let’s not allow our own demise or give up control over necessary resources in the U.S. and especially in Abbott.” Under the same Hill County stars he’s sung about for seventy years, Willie Nelson just picked another fight worth having.
Details at Consequence
More Texas Music News
The State Fair of Texas rolled out its full local-music lineup this week, including a brand-new stage. The Ziegenbock Stage joins the Bud Light Stage and White Claw Spotlight Stage this year. It opens inside the newly renovated Old Mill Inn at Fair Park. The White Claw stage partners with the Dallas Music Office, while the other two extend the Fair’s ongoing partnership with East Dallas label State Fair Records. A pre-party called Saddle Up kicks off the season on September 10 at The Rustic, with a performance from Cash Byers. The Fair runs September 25 through October 18. Details at KXT 91.7