Johnny and June Carter Cash's Gravesite

Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash are buried side by side at Hendersonville Memory Gardens in Hendersonville, Tennessee — the suburban Nashville community where they lived for over thirty years. June Carter Cash died on May 15, 2003, from complications following heart valve surgery. Johnny Cash died four months later, on September 12, 2003. He was 71. Cash told an interviewer after June death that he was keeping busy because sitting still hurt too much.

The grave markers are simple granite headstones, side by side, in keeping with Cash lifelong aesthetic of plainness and directness. The cemetery is also the resting place of Cash parents and several siblings. Roy Orbison and his family are buried nearby. Fans regularly leave flowers, guitar picks, and handwritten notes. The site is quiet, respectful, and surprisingly understated given the scale of Cash fame.

The Cash family home on Old Hickory Lake, where Johnny and June lived from the late 1960s, was one of the most significant private residences in country music history. Cash recorded in his home studio and received visitors ranging from Bob Dylan to Billy Graham. The house was destroyed by fire in April 2007 while being renovated by its new owner, Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees. The grave is now the most tangible remaining connection to the place Cash called home.

Hendersonville Memory Gardens is at 353 Johnny Cash Parkway — the road was renamed in his honour. The cemetery is open during daylight hours. Hendersonville is about 20 miles northeast of downtown Nashville, making the gravesite an easy addition to a Nashville music pilgrimage.