Cary Ann Hearst at the 2007 Austin City Limits Festival

by Lynne Margolis.

After you attend a certain number of music festivals, conferences and similar mass-quantity musical experiences, it’s hard to fend off relapses of short-attention-span syndrome. At the Austin City Limits Festival (September 14-16, 2007), for example, there’s so much to hear, so much ground to cover – and still so much September Texas heat – that it becomes an endurance test. You’re so busy trying to find viewing territory and keep hydrated (but not too hydrated; otherwise, it’s port-o-potty time), sunblocked, fanned, misted and, of course, connected (despite overloaded cell-phone circuits and troublesome reception), you almost forget that you’re there to be entertained.

After a while, you can’t imagine trying to trip through one more mass of collapsible chairs and sweaty fans, even though they’re so laid back, the crews call this the “pardon-me” festival. (Which should be a compliment; crowd control has never been even a minor issue at ACL Fest. Officials actually praised patrons’ helpfulness when a large fire broke out behind a stage on the first afternoon, shutting down a performance by Pete Yorn.)

In those situations, the only thing to do is seek out the oasis stages: the smaller, less crowded ones where the bubbling-under talent can be found … artists who provide that so-cool thrill of discovery, you can’t wait to talk about them when people ask, “Who blew you away?”

Maybe someone like Cary Ann Hearst & the Gun Street Girls, who played a Saturday mid-afternoon slot on a stage sponsored by performing rights organization BMI. Billed on their MySpace page as “CA Hearst – singin’, screamin’, tantrums and archtops; Lee Barbour – Telecasters and machismo; Gerald Gregory – electric and vital organs; Ash Hopkins – basses and philosophy; Jack Burg – drums and dirty words,” they’re the kind of hardworking, get-it-done band adored by roots music fans (still a significant portion of the ACL Fest audience, despite programmers’ efforts to snag the hipster crowd with plenty of indie-rock darlings).

Hearst is a little Southern spitfire with a country/blues/rock/punk soul, a gospel heart and hints of Neko Case and some classic country gals in her voice. When she and guitarist Barbour talked backstage after their gig, she used the word “blessed.” A lot. Part of the reason is Barbour, a jazz guitarist who teaches at the College of Charleston and is currently in four different bands. He started playing with the Gun Street Girls a year go; each bandmember has different projects, he says, “But Cary’s our main squeeze.”

He admits he does have to “switch off jazz” to get down into the Carolina groove.

“It’s been really cool to watch him do that,” bubbles Hearst. “It’s been liberating for him. I started playing guitar at 10, but I never really got any better,” she laughs, braids bobbing under a drenched red doo-rag. “I’m as good as I was at 10.”

As Barbour chides, “That is a lie,” she continues, in that kind of Southern accent that gets more melodic and persuasive as it really kicks in, “but I love to perform and I really like to entertain people and to catch that energy off people. So today was really magic that way. Cause they’re givin’ it to you for free today, they’re just givin’ it to you.”

That’s the other thing about the small stages. Several of the artists who populate them are used to playing before hundreds, not thousands, so they’re genuinely appreciative of the attention. And they show it, pouring every bit of still-unjaded energy into their sets.

Though she claimed to be playing her first festival, Hearst has been knocking around the tightknit Charleston scene for years. She was one of the artists chosen by BMI, not festival promoters, to showcase on the BMI stage – the smallest one of the festival, but frequently the one to watch. Hearst called her experience on it “friggin’ amazing.”

“We’re at zero,” she explains. “We put 10 years in gettin’ to zero for the upward move. You have to put in a lot of time writin’ and bar-band giggin’ and hustlin’ … and playin’ to nobody. As long as you can do that well, when you get something like this, it feels so good.”

Though Hearst linoleum-block-printed each one of her skull-decorated covers for her new album, Dust and Bones, by hand, she’s not exactly at D.I.Y. zero. Her recently signed manager is Taylor Shults of TKO Artist Management, whose clients include Toby Keith and Chris LeDoux. They met when someone who once knew her mom caught the Gun Street Girls’ set at the Basement in Nashville. He told his friend Shults to check them out. He heard a sound Hearst described to a Charleston reporter as drenched in “saltwater and religion,” with a “slow southern dip and strut.”

Though fiercely independent, Hearst says, they hit it off so well, she decided to accept his management offer. She’s not in any hurry to get a label deal, though.

“I gotta say Cary always had the talent, but over the past couple years, she’s seen that there is an opportunity for us to do it on our own and make it happen and that’s exactly what we’re tryin’ to do,” says Barbour. “If we get a little help along the way, that’d be beautiful, but if not, we’re used to doing it ourselves anyway.”

Adds Hearst, “The revolution is here, and we can do it; we’re able to do it on our own. We’re gonna do it come hell or high water, no matter what happens.”

Turning to her longtime pal, she says, “It’s good to know we can be OK.” “Yeah,” says Lee, “we’re gonna be fine.”

Cary Ann Hearst & the Gun Street Girls play the CMJ Festival in New York on October 19 at the Annex and showcase at the Americana Music Association Conference on November 2 at the Basement in Nashville – where they’ll be, as Hearst puts it on MySpace, “tryin’ to get famous. Tryin’ real hard.”

Related Links
Austin City Limits Music Festival
Cary Ann Hearst
Cary Ann Hearst & the Gun Street Girls on MySpace

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