The Johnny Cash Music Festival concert will be held at Arkansas State University’s Convocation Center in Jonesboro on October 5th, starring artists including Willie Nelson, Dierks Bentley, the Civil Wars and Rosanne Cash, in an effort to raise funds for the restoration of Johnny Cash’s boyhood home in Dyess, Arkansas. There are very few tickets left.
An initial fundraiser in 2011 raised $300,000 for the Cash home, and Bill Carter, who is producing Friday’s Johnny Cash Music Festival event, hopes it will bring in another $200,000. Local officials say work to rebuild the Cash house and its foundations, a barn and other outbuildings, and to construct a new visitor center and walking trails will cost about $1.9 million.
“The restoration is pretty far along. We are hoping we can raise enough funds from this year’s concert so that we can open in the fall of 2013,” said Ruth Hawkins, director of the Arkansas Heritage Sites at Arkansas State University. Hawkins said family members are donating many items that were original to the home.
Read more at the Chicago Tribune.