Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash earned a reputation as an outlaw after being arrested and spending a handful of nights in jail for minor offenses. Contrary to popular myths, The Arkansas-native was never convicted of a felony or spent time in prison – except when he was performing for inmates.

But it turns out, the prolific country singer once actually had the power to enforce the law in Tennessee. Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall presented a newly discovered copy of the musician's official ID as a sheriff's deputy this week at the Johnny Cash Museum in downtown Nashville.

All bills passed during the 2019 session of the Arkansas General Assembly have been signed into law. Gov. Asa Hutchinson did not veto any bills this year. He signed the final pieces of legislation Wednesday afternoon alongside several lawmakers.

A formal adjournment is set to take place next Wednesday when lawmakers return to the Capitol for Sine Die. In some previous years, that has been when senators and representatives have had to consider whether to attempt to override gubernatorial vetoes, something that won’t be necessary this time.

Statues of singer Johnny Cash and civil rights leader Daisy Bates will eventually represent Arkansas in the U.S. Capitol. Gov. Asa Hutchinson was joined by members of the Cash family and the goddaughter of Bates for a bill signing ceremony Thursday at the state Capitol.

"This is an occasion that deserves a celebration about Arkansas history, about how we represent ourselves to the nation," Hutchinson said.

A proposal to replace Arkansas’s two statues in the U.S. Capitol with singer Johnny Cash and civil rights leader Daisy Bates has advanced to the state House of Representatives for what could be a final vote. The bill was passed in the Arkansas Senate last month with no one voting against it.

Singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash took part in a fundraiser Thursday evening at the Arkansas Governor's Mansion in Little Rock to benefit the ongoing restoration of her father Johnny Cash's boyhood home in Dyess, Arkansas.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson invited her to hold the event there, calling the Cash house, which has been turned into a museum, "a great asset for the state." Arkansas State University bought the dilapidated home in 2011, carefully restoring it to how it looked when Johnny Cash lived there with his parents and siblings.

It has been one year since the official opening of the Johnny Cash Boyhood Home and the Dyess Colony. Executive Director of Arkansas State University’s Heritage Sites program Dr. Ruth Hawkins says this past year has been very busy.

On this episode of Arts & Letters, we take a guided tour through the Johnny Cash: Arkansas Icon Exhibit, which opens October 10th and runs through January 24th, at the Arkansas Studies Institute in downtown Little Rock.

Fans have long traveled from around the world to see the small farm house in northeast Arkansas that Johnny Cash often talked or sang about.  After years of restoration work, it is now officially open as a musuem. A grand opening ceremony was held Saturday, drawing a large crowd to the town circle in Dyess.

After years of fundraising and restoration work, Johnny Cash’s boyhood home in northeast Arkansas will officially open to the public Saturday as a museum.

The country music icon – who died 11 years ago – moved to the house in 1935 when he was three years old.  His family was one of about 500 selected to live in the town of Dyess, which was created during the Great Depression as part of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. They were sold a piece of farm land at a low price in return for making contributions to the community.

As final work is being completed to open Johnny Cash’s boyhood home in Dyess, Arkansas as a museum, his daughter Rosanne Cash came to Little Rock over the weekend for a sold out show and to be honored for her work in helping to restore the small house.

On what would have been Johnny Cash's 80th birthday, dozens of family members joined hundreds of fans and residents in the east Arkansas town of Dyess Sunday to formally mark the beginning of work to restore his boyhood home.

"This project has been in the making for several years and I never thought that it would actually come to fruition," said daughter Rosanne Cash, who led the ceremony at the Dyess Community Center. "We never foresaw that it would take on this kind of life."

A sold out show at Arkansas State University raised more than $310,000 for the restoration of the boyhood home of music legend Johnny Cash in the east Arkansas town of Dyess.

Four generations of the Cash family, including daughter Rosanne Cash, son-in-law Rodney Crowell and son John Carter Cash were on hand to pay homage to Cash, as were many of his longtime friends like Kris Kristofferson.

More than seven years after the death of Arkansas-native Johnny Cash, a new collection has just been released of rare, vintage recordings.

As FM 89's Michael Hibblen reports, “Bootleg II: From Memphis to Hollywood” spans the first 15 years of Cash's music career, and includes his first radio broadcast, when Cash and the Tennessee Two got a weekly show on West Memphis station KWEM.