Public Broadcasting System's WKNO-Memphis to premiere 2011 Johnny Cash Music Festival special May 24
This event has been rescheduled. Please stay tuned.
The long-awaited Public Broadcasting System (PBS) television special featuring the 2011 inaugural Johnny Cash Music Festival, filmed at Arkansas State University’s Convocation Center, will premiere Thursday, May 24, on WKNO-Memphis. On the same day, the talent lineup for the 2012 festival will be announced. The 90-minute TV special begins at 7 p.m. and runs through 8:30 p.m. on WKNO-Memphis.
“May 24 is going to be an exciting day,” said Christy Valentine, executive director of Marketing and Communications at ASU. “It will start with a morning news conference at ASU’s Cooper Alumni Center, where we will announce the talent lineup for the 2012 festival, and it will carry on into the PBS special on the inaugural concert that evening. We expect the television show will be watched by thousands of viewers and will forever cement a bond between Johnny Cash, his family, and Arkansas State University.”
Singer-songwriter and author Rosanne Cash, the daughter of Johnny Cash, will attend the news conference Thursday at 11 a.m. in ASU’s Cooper Alumni Center, 2600 Alumni Blvd., Jonesboro, before traveling to Memphis and the studios of WKNO to promote the PBS premiere. The first Johnny Cash Music Festival was held Thursday, Aug. 4, 2011, kicking off the fundraising drive to raise monies for the restoration of Johnny Cash’s childhood home in Dyess, Ark.
The second Johnny Cash Music Festival will be held Friday, Oct. 5, 2012, at ASU’s Convocation Center, 217 Olympic Drive, Jonesboro. Rosanne Cash will announce the talent lineup at the 11 a.m. news conference.
The 2011 sold-out concert that featured performances by Rosanne Cash, John Carter Cash, Kris Kristofferson, George Jones, Tommy Cash, Joanne Cash Yates, Dailey and Vincent, Gary Morris, Rodney Crowell, Chelsea Crowell, and others was produced for PBS. The performers had signed on because of personal relationships with Johnny Cash and members of the Cash family and a desire to help keep Cash’s legacy intact through restoration of the home in Dyess.
Tickets for the second Johnny Cash Music Festival go on sale at 10 a.m. on Friday, May 25, at ASU’s Central Box Office, online at www.tickets.astate.edu. Tickets can also be purchased by logging onto the official website of the Johnny Cash Music Festival, www.johnnycashmusicfest.com. Call to purchase tickets toll-free at 1-888-278-3267 or locally at 870-972-2781.
The first-ever Johnny Cash Music Festival was a sold-out success, filling ASU’s Convocation Center with more than 7,000 audience members in attendance. Fans from places as close to Jonesboro as Bono and as far away as Norway crowded the Convocation Center to witness a concert of Cash family and friends, what Johnny Cash himself might have called “kith and kin,” who had gathered in tribute to the man and his musical legacy.
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