Chris Shiflett & the Dead Peasants

pin-up pageant, it’s no mystery why the festival has become such a highly anticipated summer time event.

An additional spotlight guest includes Johnny Cash’s former publicist, fill-in tour drummer and family-friend, Hugh Waddell- who is returning to fill his annual role as the event’s emcee. Waddell says, “In this current world, I am thrilled to know that once again, real people, real love-n-guts Americans, all diverse, eclectic and beautif
ul people, will converge to pay loving tribute to a man who never once did believe in ‘flying pigs and exploding bales of hay’ – Cash’s own descriptive words for puffed up hype.”

One of the largest tribute concerts on the west coast, A Tribute to the Music of Johnny Cash takes over the Ventura County Fairgrounds every year on the Saturday before Father’s Day. Commemorating the 10-year observance of the passing of John R. Cash in September 2003, numerous individuals will share their personal accounts of “The Man in Black”; explaining how a sharecropper’s son from Arkansas changed a musical landscape and influenced countless lives. The fifth annual festival will also feature the return of the Noble Fabrication “Drive On” Car & Bike Show, Johnny Cash memorabilia, and vendors offering food, beverages, and collectibles.

While the full lineup is still taking shape, several musical acts have been solidified, including Billboard country singles charter Junior Brown; LA-based traditional rock and roll band The Americans; LA-based rockabilly kings The Blasters; the celebrated Rockabilly artist Robert Gordon, award-winning, San Diego-based tribute band to the man himself, Cash’d Out; and The Walking Phoenixes, a four-man band dedicated to bringing the most authentic “Man in Black” sounds to Johnny Cash fans everywhere.