Welsh singer Aled Jones has toured Australia before. But his current tour, in conjunction with the release of his new album One Voice - Believe, is special. Jones is being accompanied for the first time by his 12-year-old son Lucas

Although they perform a duet of The Lord is My Shepherd, composed by Howard Goodall, on the album, Jones says his son won't be singing live with him on this trip.

"He's here as unofficial tour manager," Jones says.

"His voice will be heard on The Lord is My Shepherd with my younger self and I'll be singing along live - it's lovely moment."

Jones says he has never performed the number live before.

"This will be the first time, in Australia."

Although he's been to this country nearly a dozen times, this will be his first regional tour. He says many audience members have told him they drove for hours to the big cities to see him perform.

He thought it would be good, this time, "if I go to them rather than they come to me."

This will be his second time performing in Canberra (the first was nearly 10 years ago) and on this tour he will be performing in churches in churches and cathedrals. Besides the ACT he is singing in cities and towns in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania.

As well as singing a number with his son Jones will, as he often does on albums, sing duets with recordings of his younger self when he was a teenage chorister and soloist who became well-known in the 1980s. His recording of the song Walking in the Air, from the animated film The Snowman, reached Number Five in the British charts in 1985.

Among the numbers he will be likely be performing on this tour are Andrew Lloyd Webber's Pie Jesu, the Welsh hymn Sarah and How Great Thou Art. Other favourites include Make Me A Channel of Your Peace ("I tend to do to do that in every concert") and Handel's Did You Not Hear My Lady. Richard Mills' An Australian Blessing and a song he wrote himself, Believe, are also likely to appear.

tha His longtime choice of this repertoire to sing and record stems from his Christian faith and his love of the music (he has been a presenter on the BBC radio program Songs of Praise among other radio and television jobs).

"They seem to connect with me," he says of the hymns.

"When I sing the music it makes me feel good and hopefully that translates to an audience."

Besides, he says self-deprecatingly, "I'm too ugly and fat to sing popular songs - and too old."

Jones made his professional singing debut at the same age his son is now - 12 - performing the role of the Angel in Handel's oratorio Jeptha on the BBC. For the next few years he gave concerts, made television appearances and recorded.

By the time his voice broke when he was16, he had made 16 albums that sold more than six million copies, toured internationally, and performed for Pope John Paul II, the Queen and the Prince and Princess of Wales in a private recital.

He studied at the Royal Academy of Music and Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and afterwards played the lead role in the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

In 1986, Jones worked with American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein - who was born 100 years ago - as soloist in a London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus performance of the latter's composition Chichester Psalms with the composer conducting.

At the first rehearsal, Jones remembers Bernstein entering "like a whirlwind in a long black cape" and says he was in awe at the man's presence.

"He was probably the most inspirational musician I ever worked with," Jones says.

"He had more energy on stage than anyone I ever worked with."

He says Bernstein was a lot of fun but did not suffer fools gladly. In a master class Jones had with Bernstein, "I learned a hell of a lot from him."

They hoped to work together again but were unable to do so before Bernstein's death in 1990.

After this tour Jones will return to Britain and his wife Claire Fossett and he will resume his radio and TV jobs. And, of course, Lucas will go back with him.

Jones says Lucas has never wanted to sing and never had a singing lesson "but fancied having a go before his voice breaks".

Jones remembers the recording of their duet. He says that hearing his son's voice come in was "a real melting moment".