The Johnny Cash Project Celebrates Official Launch

Three weeks ago, The Johnny Cash project was unofficially launched as a dynamic website for fans to submit their artistic interpretations of the music legend. The website, described as an “online global collective art project”, now has 5,000 submissions in its short history. 

 

The highly-interactive website is designed to celebrate the February 2010 release of American VI: Ain’t No Grave, produced by Rick Rubin. The album is Johnny Cash’s final studio recording, and the website was established as a way to create a collaborative ongoing music video for the title track of the album.

 

"Chris told me about this great art project he had in mind, but needed an iconic artist for it to work," said Rick Rubin. "His description of it sounded so new and unusual, that I was interested just to get to see it! While I think he had originally intended to work with a living artist, I suggested Johnny Cash; he thought about it and realized that Johnny's passing changed the meaning of the project for the better, and The Johnny Cash Project was born."

 

With no publicity at all, the site has already attracted more than 75,000 visitors from 150 different countries. The site encourages fans of the icon to create their own living portrait of Johnny Cash in hope that his legacy will live on in an ever changing and empowering way. 

 

The virtual resurrection of The Man in Black is right in line with the theme for the album Ain’t No Grave.

 

“Johnny’s spirit truly does live on – not just through his musical catalog -- but in the hearts of all the people around the world he has touched so deeply,” said Chris Milk, the project’s creator and director. “The Johnny Cash Project is the visual manifestation of all that love coming together, not just to produce a music video, but to show how Johnny’s enduring spirit continues living on inside of all of us."