Austinist Previews Austin City Limits Music Festival: The Jones Family Singers and Cary Ann Hearst

Alexis Jones’ powerful voice paces The Jones Family Singers’ uplifting message and equally inspirational music. However, it is Dr. Fred A. Jones, a pastor as well as band manager, who binds this gospel act together. The Jones Family Singers, as the name would imply, consists of Dr. Jones’ daughters, sons, grandson, and even a son-in-law. The band’s resume includes an appearance on BET as well as tours all over North America.

The Jones Family Singers
Bay City, TX
Latest Release: Taking It To The Next Level, 2007
Sunday the 16th, 1 p.m., WaMu Stage

Image courtesy of The Jones Family Singers’ website, Author Unknown.

Cary Ann Hearst’s full-length Dust And Bones contains sprawls of country-folk shaded by insightful lyrics and genuine emotion. The album has won over many critics in Charleston and also caught the attention of Band Of Horses, who invited Hearst to open for them in select cities. The act’s MySpace page paints a most interesting picture of the band’s origins -- “Cary Ann Hearst first found the Gun Street Girls living in various conditions of squalor in the dilapidated neighborhoods of Charleston, SC / As they sat baking in the shade that day, they found in common a lust for heartbreak and a lack of transportation, the Gun Street Girls traded their switch-blades to the corner boys for a handle of Evan Williams and learned to play instruments salvaged from the post industrial wasteland beside the Cooper River.” We’re intrigued!