Houston & Jones perform April 17

Anyone who has attended music festivals in California is bound to know the band Houston Jones. The “High-Octane” Americana quintet is one of the most popular groups on the circuit. Lately, however, the co-founders guitarist Glenn Houston and vocalist/guitarist Travis Jones have taken a side-trip as a duo. It’s hard to believe that less could be more in the case of Houston Jones, but the Houston and Jones reduction proves that the band rocks solid at its core.

The duo will rock Fiddlers Crossing on Friday, April 17, at 7 p.m. Their original music that is part gospel, part old-time country, with a large dose of bluegrass, Celtic, rock, folk and blues thrown into the mix. It’s the very definition of the genre now dubbed “Americana.”

Both Houston and Jones hail from the Bay Area where they played in several different bands, both together and separately. They actually started as a duo in 2001, and quickly added bass, keyboard and percussion, and sometimes fiddle, to form Houston Jones.

Lead guitarist Glenn Houston has won accolades as Best Guitarist on the bluegrass scene and was the founding lead guitarist of the popular Bay Area band The Waybacks. He has a background in classical choral music and theory, and also had a career as a Silicon Valley IT engineer. Houston plays a standard guitar upside down and backwards.

Travis Jones began singing gospel at the age of four with his mother, a gospel and blues singer. He developed his enormous vocal chops by accompanying his mother on gospel tours in the South, and then as a child preacher and gospel singer, telling Old Testament Bible stories at revivals and tent meetings. Hearing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan turned him to a different path. After six years in the US Army, he entered the Northern California music scene in 1979, where he also acted in and directed musical theatre. Jones now lives on his sailboat in Alameda with Samson the Wonderdog.

Houston and Jones, alone or with their full band, have shared the stage with some of the biggest names in American roots music, including Hank Williams, Jr., Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson on the country side. In folk and bluegrass, they have shared billing with Emmy Lou Harris, Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs, John Hartford, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Asleep at the Wheel and numerous others.

Whether Houston Jones, or Houston and Jones, this is “Americana” music at its best.

The concert starts at 7 p.m., with doors opening at 6:30. Tickets are $20, available at Tehachapi Treasure Trove, Tehachapi Furniture, Lucky’s Barbershop, or at the Fiddler’s Crossing Wednesday Open Mics and First Fridays. Tickets are also available online at Fiddlers Crossing.com, and may be reserved by calling 661-823-9994. Fiddlers Crossing is at 206 East F Street, Downtown Tehachapi at Robinson. Buying tickets early is strongly suggested.

On the horizon at Fiddlers Crossing: Dan Crary and Thunderation, Rita Hosking, Café Musique, Kerry Patrick Clark, and Juni Fisher.