Alison Krauss and Jamey Johnson headline the Johnny Cash Heritage Festival in the cotton fields surrounding Cash’s Dyess (Mississippi County) home this weekend. The three-day festival culminates in a concert noon-5 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 20, that celebrates the 50th anniversary of the 1968 Johnny Cash Show tours. John Carter Cash will host and and Krauss, Johnson, Ana Cristina Cash, Suzanne Cox, Heather Berry Mabe, Ira Dean and others will perform. Tickets range from $35-$100 and are available at johnnycashheritagefestival.com.
The festival also includes “The Ties That Bind,” a symposium of film screenings and discussions from noon-4:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 18, and public presentations from 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 19, in the Dyess Colony Circle and visitor center. Those “ties,” the festival’s website reads, “embrace the Great Depression, New Deal and agricultural programs that brought colonists together; cultural touchstones that tied Dyess to other communities or to the 1930s-40s; influences such as the impact of earlier artists or contemporaries on Johnny Cash, or the influence of Johnny Cash on contemporaries or later artists.”