There wouldn’t be bluegrass without someone to play it, but there also wouldn’t be bluegrass without fans to hear it. Jan Vincent is a bluegrass fan who has made a difference. Her Jan’s World website (https://jansworld.net/) has collected and preserved the performances and history of two important local bluegrass bands. We can now watch videos of The Grateful Dudes and Krazy Kirk and the Hillbillies (formerly Billy Hill and the Hillbillies).
Jan grew up listening to bluegrass. Her father loved bluegrass and country-and-western music and played it all the time on the radio. Although Jan was a Beatles fan, she knew the songs. In 2000, Jan and her husband moved back to Anaheim, California. She had been an annual pass holder at Disneyland since 1986. But when they were back in Southern California, her son said, “Mom, remember that group you used to like at Critter Country? They’re now at the Golden Horseshoe.” So Jan went to hear the band, Billy Hill and the Hillbillies, heard the songs she loved, and ended up sitting and talking with one of the bandmembers, Dennis Fetchet. It turned out that the two had grown up within a few miles of each other and had a lot of common. He invited her to hear the Grateful Dudes, another band that he played with, who performed on Saturdays at Vincenzo’s Pizzeria in Newhall. Jan went and was hooked.
The Grateful Dudes started in the 1980s, playing at Vincenzo’s. The personnel has changed over the years but has included some amazingly talented musicians. Dudes and “sub-Dudes” have included Bill Bryson (bass), Herb Pedersen (guitar/banjo), Dennis Fetchet (fiddle/mandolin), Dean Knight (bass), Dick Fegy (mandolin), John Schlocker (banjo), Bob Applebaum (mandolin), Pat Sauber (mandolin), Tom Sauber(fiddle), Ross Landry (guitar/mandolin), Bill Knopf (banjo), Kenny Blackwell (mandolin), Tony Recuipido (guitar), Walden Dahl (guitar), Andrew Paddock (bass), Rudy Epstein (bass), Roger Reed (guitar), Chris Hillman (mandolin), Kirk Wall (guitar/fiddle), Ross Landry (mandolin), Leroy Mack (dobro). The current line-up of the Dudes includes Rodger Phillips, Dean Knight, Phil Salazar, David Dickey III and Jerry Kincaid.
Dennis suggested that the band needed a website. Jan’s husband David built online computer systems for satellites, so he easily built a website for the Dudes(https://jansworld.net/grateful-dudes). Keeping it up was another matter — after a few months, he didn’t have the time to handle the site, so he showed Jan how to do it. She has been growing the site ever since. When Dennis suggested a fansite for the Billy Hill and the Hillbillies, Jan put one together and this became their official site. Eventually she grouped her sites together into Jan’s World (https://jansworld.net/jans-world-home).
Initially Jan took videos of the bands and posted them to her sites. To provide more information for Hillbillies fans, she would talk to the band on their breaks and interview them to find out how they got started, and get other details. Jan would go to every Hillbillies show —- up to five shows a day — and people began to recognize her. When they learned that she was the website person, they would share their own videos with her and provide links to their Youtube channels. Other fans would come up to ask her questions about the band and Disneyland in general. Jan researched their questions, and aided by Disney Archivist Dave Smith, started posting this information. She ended up creating websites for the Golden Horseshoe History and Disney Ticket History (for those of us who remember the “E” tickets). Jan’s work has appeared over the years on other websites and on Wikipedia, although she doesn’t always get the work attributed to her.
Although Jan loves bluegrass music, she doesn’t own a lot of bluegrass CDs. That’s because there has always been so much live bluegrass for her to enjoy. In fact, she holds the record for the most Hillbillies shows seen in a row. One February Dennis Fetchet bet her that she couldn’t see every show they did for the rest of that year (remember, that was five shows a day!). He lost. Jan’s super-fan Saturday schedule was exhausting. She would be at Disneyland for the first show, either at 11:45 or 12:45, and stay to the last show at 5:30. Then she would run out the front gate of Disneyland, retrieve her car and drive to Newhall by 7:30 to hear the Grateful Dudes. She had a contest with Dennis to see who could get there first. After that show she would return to Anaheim at 10:30 to pick up her daughter (who was a Swing Dancer) back at the Disneyland.
And what is the payoff? She loves the fun she has from being involved. And she has met so many wonderful people! She has stories of magical moments that she has been a part of. Chris Hillman, of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers, was a good friend of Herb Pedersen, one of the Dudes. He came by Vincenzo’s every week for four or five months. One night he and Herb and Bill Brysen did an acoustic version of “Eight Miles High” that had the audience spell-bound (you can find the link on Jan’s website). Other times famous musicians would come by to sit in and play with the band.
Besides the Dudes and the Hillbillies, pre-Covid she loved listening to Bill Knopf and Tom Corbett, who played together at Knott’s. Knott’s is scheduled to re-open on May 21 and despite the limited reservations available, Jan will be there to catch the music. She will be listening to the current version of Krazy Kirk and the Hillbillies: Kirk Walls lead vocals, guitar and fiddle), Eric Brenton (fiddle, mandolin and guitar), Rick Storey (banjo and electric guitar), Anders Swanson (bass) and Brad Conyers (drums). She will be adding to the 30,000+ Hillbillies shows and 800+ Grateful Dudes performances that she has viewed over the past 21 years.
Jan says that this is her “retirement”, and she is determined to do only the things she really enjoys. The website is one of them. Over the years her husband taught her everything she knew about computers. When he died in 2005, she had to keep up with those skills on her own and it forced her to learn. The band websites let her write, be creative, research history, and grow. Although she doesn’t play an instrument, Jan is an important part of the bluegrass support team.
