Johnny Cash Museum plans May opening, previews collection for Cash siblings

Posted on April 25, 2013 by Peter Cooper




Thursday morning, Joanne Cash Yates and Tommy Cash walked into The Johnny Cash Museum, a soon-to-open downtown space devoted to their late brother.

First, they smiled at an old Martin guitar with a folded dollar bill stuck through the strings: In the 1950s, before he had a drummer, Johnny Cash used a dollar bill to create a percussive effect when he strummed the instrument.

Then, they looked left and saw a display filled with family photos and artifacts, from the Cashes’ hardscrabble 1940s days in Dyess, Ark. There was a radio like the one the family used to listen to the “Grand Ole Opry.” There was Johnny’s Future Farmers of America card, and a school yearbook page. And then it was hard to see through the tears.

“I want to ask them what they think, but they won’t stop crying,” said Museum owner Bill Miller, whose extraordinary collection of Johnny and June Carter Cash memorabilia will be on public display in a matter of weeks, at 119 Third Ave. S. Johnny and June died months apart in 2003 in Nashville.





Daughter Cathy Cash-Tittle was emotional upon seeing her parents’ marriage certificate for the first time. Others in the family gasped to see a stone wall that was part of Johnny and June’s Hendersonville home before it burned. There were tin cups from Folsom Prison, where Cash recorded a classic album. There were stage outfits, awards, gold and platinum albums, and a remarkable collection of instruments from Cash, The Carter Family and supporting musicians Luther Perkins, Marshall Grant and W.S. “Fluke” Holland.

“It’s just unbelievable,” said Tommy Cash, who followed his brother into the music industry and recorded hits including “Six White Horses.” “I’m amazed at what’s here. People from all over the world will come and see this.”

That’s what Miller, who said the Museum will officially open in May, is hoping. A close friend of Country Music Hall of Famer Johnny Cash, the California-based Miller amassed his collection over four decades.

“When all of this left Corona, California, in a 53-foot tractor trailer, I felt a burden lift,” he said. “Every artifact here helps to tell the story, and this needed to be in Nashville.”