Among the white marble statesmen and bronze war heroes who stand silent sentinel through the halls of the Capitol, a musician arrived Tuesday. It was Johnny Cash, the “Man in Black” who built his fame singing about, and for, outlaws and the things love and cocaine will do to a man.
The bronze statue by Arkansas-based sculptor Kevin Kresse shows a young Cash, pensively looking down at his feet as he walks forward, a guitar slung on his back and his left hand on the strap, as if he’s just taken the stage — perhaps at San Quentin prison — to approach the microphone, swing his six-string around, and start the show like he always did: “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.”
It joins the Capitol’s National Statuary Hall Collection, but this man in bronze will not walk the line that tour guides so often do. Instead, it will stay in the Capitol Visitor Center, standing near Utah’s Philo T. Farnsworth, the “Father of Television.”
