Janyce Hess

© 2015 Last Small Town

Janyce plays bass and sings harmony for Last Small Town. She has been playing and singing bluegrass for 20 years. Mostly a parking lot picker, she loves playing with her friends.

Janyce plays a 1950 kay upright bass that she found in a pawn shop. She was in Texarkana in 1992 and while pawning some jewelry to bail her mama out of prison she noticed “hoss” over in corner. It was love at first sight. So janyce used the money from her jewelry and she and “hoss” are rarely parted. This story does have a happy ending as months later she and the rest of her family had a garage sale and got enough money to raise bail.

Recently Janyce purchased a Bass previously owned by George Shuffler. George played the bass while playing with the Stanley Brothers. It is a 1943 American Standard and is the bass in this photo.