Rosanne Cash to perform first concert from inside Johnny Cash boyhood home

Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Rosanne Cash will perform the first-ever concert from her father’s boyhood home in Dyess. This concert will headline the 2021 virtual Johnny Cash Heritage Festival, that will be held Friday and Saturday, Oct. 15-16.

“I am thrilled and delighted to return to Dyess to perform the first public concert from the living room of my father’s boyhood home, said Cash. “This exciting benefit event raises funds to continue our mission of bringing attention to the rich history of my father in the Arkansas Delta and the New Deal-era colony where he was raised. This year I am honored to share our family home in a special way.”

Tickets for the concert are currently on sale at JohnnyCashHeritageFestival.com.

Ticket prices are $35 plus applicable fees for the full virtual festival, which includes a two-day program of presentations, demonstrations and performances. A $75 VIP ticket includes the entirety of the virtual festival and an inperson event on the campus of Arkansas State University on the evening of Oct. 15. This inperson event will feature live music, food and drink, and a screening of the concert from the boyhood home.

After successful music events in Arkansas State University’s First National Bank Arena beginning in 2011, the benefit event was expanded to a threeday heritage festival in 2017 and moved to Dyess. This year’s festival will be the first to be held virtually.

“We hope everyone will join us for the entire festival, which will include an international line-up of presenters and performers,” Rosanne said. “I have also invited several of my friends to join us for special performances. I’ll be announcing these performances in upcoming weeks.”

The theme for this year’s academic symposium is “Social Justice in the Life and Music of Johnny Cash.” Presentations will highlight Johnny Cash’s work with prison reform and his advocacy of Native American rights in his album Bitter Tears. Another highlight will be a behind-the-scenes look at the installation of statues of Johnny Cash and civil rights leader Daisy Gatson Bates in National Statuary Hall.

“This year, we celebrate the 10th anniversary of our music festival,” Cash said. “I look forward to virtually welcoming visitors from all across the world to experience the little patch of ‘gumbo soil’ in Dyess, Arkansas, in a new and unique way.’”

The festival is coordinated through Arkansas State University Heritage Sites and licensed through the John R. Cash Revocable Trust.

One of the country’s preeminent singer/songwriters, Rosanne Cash has released 15 albums of extraordinary songs that have earned four Grammy Awards and 11 nominations. Additionally, she has 21 Top 40 hits, including 11 No. 1 singles.

Cash also is an author whose four books include the bestselling memoir Composed, which the Chicago Tribune called “one of the best accounts of an American life you’ll likely ever read.” Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Oxford-American, The Nation and many more print and online publications. In addition to regular touring, Cash has partnered in programming collaborations with Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, San Francisco Jazz, Minnesota Orchestra and The Library of Congress.

In August 2021, Cash became the first woman to win the prestigious Edward MacDowell Medal in composition, working in Americana, rock, blues, folk, and pop, influencing American culture across musical genres. The medal, which rotates annually among all disciplines practiced at the MacDowell artist residency, has been awarded since 1960 to an artist who has made an outstanding contribution to American culture.

Cash was awarded the SAG/AFTRA Lifetime Achievement award for sound recordings in 2012 and received the 2014 Smithsonian Ingenuity Award in the Performing Arts. She was chosen as a Perspective Series artist at Carnegie Hall for the 2015-16 season, where she curated a series of American roots music, including her own performance.

She has continued her association with Carnegie Hall as a Creative Partner since 2017. She also served as 2015 artist-in-residence at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville and was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters’ Hall of Fame that same year.

To learn more about the festival, visit JohnnyCashHeritageFestival.com.