America's much-treasured icon Johnny Cash, who would have turned 80
years old on February 26, will be the focus of a series of tributes and
celebrations in 2012, starting with the official ground-breaking
of the Johnny Cash Boyhood Home Project in Dyess, AR.
'A number of family members including Cash's children Rosanne,
John Carter, Cindy and Kathy Cash Tittle, plus at least seven of his
grandchildren, will be on hand for the launch event scheduled to take place February
26, 2:00PM at the Dyess CommunityCenter, followed by a birthday
tribute.
Said Rosanne Cash, "February 26th, 2012 marks
the 80th anniversary of my father's birth. On that day, the extended
Cash family will gather at his boyhood home in Dyess,
Arkansas, to
celebrate the groundbreaking of the Johnny Cash Boyhood Home project:
an undertaking long in the planning, and a great honor and thrill for
our family. This entire year we celebrate not just his roots and
history, but the breadth and depth of his artistic legacy, his
spirit and authenticity, and the love and rhythm he brought to all our
lives which continues to inspire millions of people around the
globe."
The Johnny Cash Boyhood Home Project will be a
permanent tribute to Cash's early life and that of his family's, as
well as reflect an historical slice of American life during the 1930's
Great Depression. Arkansas State University is spearheading the
restoration of not only the house that Cash grew up in and its various
outbuildings, but has taken under its wing several other Dyess historic
buildings in an effort to preserve the town's rich heritage.
ASU's end-goals include the establishment of a Johnny Cash
museum, a space for educational workshops, classes, and
demonstrations, the creation of tourism-related jobs in the town,
and providing scholarships to ASU for deserving students from the Dyess
area.
ASU's Dr. Ruth Hawkins, who initiated Arkansas's Hemingway-Pfeiffer
Museum and other Arkansas heritage sites, is overseeing the Johnny Cash
Boyhood Home Project. "We are working very hard to achieve
authenticity in this restoration," said Dr. Hawkins.
"Based on photos and the recollections of family members,
the house will be furnished as it was during the 1930s and 1940s when
the Cash family lived there. We've gone so far as to take core
paint samples from the house and send them for lab analysis to ensure
that we have the correct colors.
Fundraising for the project began last August with
the first annual Johnny Cash Music Festival held on the ASU Jonesboro
campus. The concert featured performances by John Carter Cash,
Rosanne Cash, George Jones, Kris Kristofferson, and many others, all of
whom donated their time. The Cash family is committed to hosting
the Festival yearly, and has earmarked all proceeds for the Dyess
restoration project.
Johnny Cash, known as "J.R.," grew up in
Dyess Colony, an agricultural resettlement community in Arkansas that
was part of the "New Deal," the government's economic program
that provided relief to desperately poor families. In 1935, the
Cash's were one of 500 original families who received a brand new
Colony house, 20 to 40 acres of land, a mule and seed for farming (less
than 40 houses remain). Life in the Dyess Colony served as a
tremendous influence on the young J.R., with the back-breaking work he
did in the cotton fields, and the music he sang in church and heard on
the radio providing the inspiration for many of the songs he would
later write, such as "Five Feet High and Rising" and
"Pickin' Time."
Also set for this year-long birthday celebration is
the opening of the new Johnny Cash Museum in downtown Nashville.
On display will be many items from the legendary House of Cash
that closed in 1999, as well as additional memorabilia endowed by the
Cash family. Details will be announced shortly. Also in
celebration of Cash's 80th birthday, Columbia/Legacy will release a
series of archive titles beginning with Bootleg IV: The Soul of
Truth slated for April 3. More information will be announced
shortly. In addition, three documentaries on Johnny Cash's life
are in various stages of development.
Separate from spearheading their father's 80th
birthday celebrations, John Carter and Rosanne Cash are each busy with
their own projects. Rosanne, whose book "Composed: A
Memoir," was released in hardcover last August and called
"one of the best accounts of an American life you'll likely ever
read" by the Chicago Tribune, is currently writing a new album of
original songs based on Southern themes and people. In March,
Simon & Schuster will publish "Cat In a Rhinestone Suit,"
the third in a series of critically-acclaimed children's books written
by John Carter. His "House of Cash: The Legacies of My
Father" was released last October.
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