A local music shop can preserve a town’s culture, teach a beginner, and keep a family memory playable.

What if a music shop is not just where you buy an instrument, but where a community keeps its memories alive? Kim Dieterichs shares how Bucks County Folk Music Shop became a welcoming home for folk and bluegrass music in New Britain, Pennsylvania.

Anthony Pinto is the host of Bucks Co Living and a top-producing RE/MAX REALTOR® serving Bucks County, Pennsylvania, with 16+ years of experience as a Realtor, Property Manager, and Relocation Specialist. On this episode, Anthony sits down with Kim Dieterichs, who explains how her parents started the shop in 1966, why every instrument is carefully checked, and how the business welcomes beginners of all ages.

Listeners will discover how folk and bluegrass became part of the Bucks County community, why common stereotypes miss the music’s deeper history, and how an independent music shop can preserve culture, family memories, and local connection.

Host / Guest

Host: Anthony Paul Pinto

Anthony Pinto hosts the Bucks Co Living podcast, highlighting the local businesses, community leaders, people, and places that make Bucks County unique.

Guest: Kim Dieterichs

Kim Dieterichs is the second-generation operator of the Bucks County Folk Music Shop in New Britain, Pennsylvania, the oldest continuously owned acoustic instrument store in the U.S. Founded by her parents in 1966, she manages store operations and inventory, serving as a key regional hub for traditional acoustic musicians.

💡 What You’ll Learn

How Bucks County Folk Music Shop checks and adjusts every new or used instrument.

Why an improperly set-up instrument can make learning more difficult.

How beginners can choose the right guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, or ukulele.

Why folk and bluegrass music continue to connect generations.

How Kim Dieterichs challenges stereotypes about folk and bluegrass music.

Why independent music shops preserve local culture, memories, and community.

🔎 Key Questions Answered

What should you check before buying an instrument online?

Kim Dieterichs explains that many online instruments are not checked to ensure they are correctly set up and playable. At Bucks County Folk Music Shop, the repair team carefully inspects and adjusts every instrument.

Why does folk and bluegrass music still matter?

Kim Dieterichs connects folk and bluegrass music to honesty, history, soul, generations, and the many cultures that shaped American music.

What does Bucks County Folk Music Shop offer beginners?

The shop offers personalized guidance, repairs, instrument adjustments, and lessons in guitar, banjo, fiddle, mandolin, and ukulele. Kim Dieterichs emphasizes that beginners are welcomed without judgment.

💼 Connect with Kim Dieterichs :

🌐 Website → https://www.buckscountyfolkmusic.com/

📘 Facebook → http://facebook.com/Bucks-County-Folk-Music-Shop-167394280055136/

📸 Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/buckscountyfolkmusicshop/

🔗 LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/kim-dieterichs-580a742a8

🎧 Follow Anthony Paul Pinto:

🌐 Website → https://www.buckscoliving.com/

📘 Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/anthonypaulpinto/

📸 Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/anthonyppinto/

🔗 LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyppinto/

Produced by Icons of Real Estate:

https://iconsofrealestate.com/

⏱️ Chapters

(00:00) Welcome to Bucks Co Living

(00:44) Family Roots in the Shop

(05:23) Folk Music Finds Bucks County

(11:23) The Risk of Buying Online

(14:54) Choosing the Right Instrument

(20:28) Why Folk Music Still Matters

(25:17) Breaking Bluegrass Stereotypes

(28:36) Start Learning an Instrument

(35:07) Integrity and Success

(43:50) Why the Shop Feels Like Home

(46:29) Visit the Shop

#BucksCoLiving #AnthonyPinto #BucksCountyRealEstate #NewtownPA #PennsylvaniaRealtor #REMAX #BucksCountyCommunity #LocalBusinessSpotlight #PARealEstate #CommunityPodcast

🚀 Matt Freedman calls himself the least talented person ever to set foot in Nashville. He also has a publishing deal and close to 500 songs written.

He was a red shirt quarterback at Bloomsburg who waited almost three years for the starting job, then tore his PCL, MCL and meniscus on a single rollout in an inner squad scrimmage. Fourteen months of recovery. He says he was depressed, holding a clipboard, charting plays, going up and down Bloomsburg hills on crutches in the winter. Music was the only outlet left, so he wrote songs. Years of mailing them to Nashville publishers produced a Keith Urban pitch that got put on hold and has still never gone anywhere, and that dead end is what produced the relationship that led to a publishing deal. He calls it a fourteen year process, overnight in the making.

🎧 Anthony Pinto hosts Bucks Co Living and works as a top-producing RE/MAX REALTOR® in Newtown with 16+ years as a Realtor, Property Manager, and Relocation Specialist. He spends his days with the people building things here, and he and Matt are Council Rock and Bishop Egan guys who never played against each other. Matt brings the business half. A rogue eighty degree day near St. Patrick's Day, a trunk full of clubs, nobody in golf shoes, and a stop at Home Depot for drill bits to screw spikes into a pair of Sperry Top-Siders. Forty orders from friends turned into a call to the spike manufacturer, who asked why he did not just make the whole shoe and handed him a factory in Taiwan. His last $15,000 bought 300 pairs. They sold out by Christmas. The next year he moved 10,000 pairs and sold to a private equity firm outside Boston. Two years into the startup he joined next, Facebook bought it for over a billion dollars.

🎧 Hosted by: Anthony Pinto

👤 Guest: 🎸 Matt Freedman – Country Artist | Frontman, Matt Freedman & The Herd | Founder, Rhythm

Matt Freedman is a personal brand strategist, country musician, and founder of Rhythm, a multimedia agency in New Hope, Pennsylvania. A former Meta professional and patent holder who contributed to four billion-dollar startup exits, he combines AI automation and video storytelling to build digital authority for executives and founders.

💡 What You'll Learn:

✔️ Rebuild a plan when one play takes the only one you had

✔️ Keep sending work to people who never answer until one finally does

✔️ Turn a garage favor for ten friends into a factory order

✔️ Decide when to stay put instead of moving for the career

✔️ Run a company where family comes before the gig

✔️ Tell content that is easy to make apart from content anyone wants

✔️ Put roughly 80% of the gap between talent and potential on grit

✔️ Find the venue and the pizza a Bucks County lifer swears by

🎵 Send this to whoever you know on their second or third thing.

💼 Connect with Matt Freedman:

🌐 Website → https://www.mattfreedmanmusic.com/

📘 Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/matthewefreedman/

📸 Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/mattfreedmanmusic/

🔗 LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/foundermattfreedman/

🎧 Follow Anthony Paul Pinto:

🌐 Website → https://www.buckscoliving.com/

📘 Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/anthonypaulpinto/

📸 Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/anthonyppinto

🔗 LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyppinto/

⭐ Produced by Icons of Real Estate - https://iconsofrealestate.com/

#BucksCoLiving #AnthonyPinto #BucksCountyRealEstate #NewtownPA #PennsylvaniaRealtor #REMAX #BucksCountyCommunity #LocalBusinessSpotlight #PARealEstate #CommunityPodcast

🚀 Will Mead made lamps for the White House and tile for Rittenhouse Square and the Columbus Circle subway station, from a shop in New Britain, PA.

He apprenticed at the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works in Doylestown, then spent about thirty years running Peace Valley Tile. His first paying commission was a date stone for a bank in Doylestown in 1985. He got busy on word of mouth alone, and he says he never learned to use social media and does not like it. He got deep into glaze chemistry, built a line of crystalline glazes that grow their own crystals as the kiln cools, and reproduced William Fulper's original recipes using modern materials. Opening the kiln, he says, was like Christmas. Sometimes you got coal in your stockings.

🎧 Anthony Pinto hosts Bucks Co Living and works as a top-producing RE/MAX REALTOR® in Newtown with 16+ years as a Realtor, Property Manager, and Relocation Specialist across Bucks County, Montgomery County, and Philadelphia. He knows why a buyer picks one town over the next, and what a house has in it is part of that math. Will knows the other side of it. What 9/11 did to a shop whose work was in New York City, what 2008 forced him to make instead including roof tile and electrical insulators, and the decision he still calls a mistake, which was dropping his production line to chase only the beautiful commissions.

🎧 Hosted by: Anthony Pinto

👤 Guest: 🏺 Will Mead – Tile Artisan | Founder, Peace Valley Tile | Moravian Tile Works Apprentice

Will Mead is the founder of Peace Valley Tile in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, and a seasoned artisan with decades of experience designing custom tile installations across Bucks County. Now retired from active production, he manages his historic studio archive, preserving a legacy of handcrafted tilework for local collectors and homeowners.

💡 What You'll Learn:

✔️ Spot the difference between handmade and machine-made tile before anyone tells you

✔️ Build a business on word of mouth with no marketing and no social media

✔️ Survive two downturns by making whatever the moment will pay for

✔️ Know why your bread-and-butter work funds the work you actually want

✔️ Reproduce a color that no longer exists, one glaze test at a time

✔️ Take Henry Mercer's plus ultra past the thing you learned it from

✔️ Find the Bucks County towns and back roads a thirty-year craftsman drives for pleasure

🎵 Send this to whoever in your life still makes things with their hands.

💼 Connect with Will Mead:

📘 Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/peacevalleytile

🎧 Follow Anthony Paul Pinto:

🌐 Website → https://www.buckscoliving.com/

📘 Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/anthonypaulpinto/

📸 Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/anthonyppinto

🔗 LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyppinto/

⭐ Produced by Icons of Real Estate - https://iconsofrealestate.com/

#BucksCoLiving #AnthonyPinto #BucksCountyRealEstate #NewtownPA #PennsylvaniaRealtor #REMAX #BucksCountyCommunity #LocalBusinessSpotlight #PARealEstate #CommunityPodcast

🚀 Tony Napoli has painted murals across Bucks County, and he still wakes up at night wondering if the next one will look like a mess.

He taught art at Pennsbury High School long enough that a generation around here calls him Mr. Nap. The Bristol Stomp mural is his. So is the one in Yardley, and the 35-foot distillery wall where a horse's head wraps around the corner of the building. He had no idea whether that horse would work until he committed to it at full scale, which is the part of the job nobody sees.

🎧 Anthony Pinto hosts Bucks Co Living and works as a top-producing RE/MAX REALTOR® in Newtown with 16+ years across Bucks County, Montgomery County, and Philadelphia. He knows why buyers pick one town over the next, and a hand-painted wall on Main Street is part of that math. Tony knows what it costs to get one up there: committee meetings with town council and the historical society, funding, permission, three tiers of scaffolding, and a dedication date that will not move for weather. He calls it a lot of cooks in the soup.

🎧 Hosted by: Anthony Pinto

👤 Guest: 🎨 Tony Napoli ("Mr. Nap") – Muralist | Oil Painter | Former Pennsbury High School Art Teacher

Anthony Napoli is a Pennsylvania-based visual artist, retired art educator, and the creator of MuralsbyNap, specializing in retro, community-centric public art installations. Leveraging nearly 30 years of teaching experience, he blends classic sign-painting techniques with collaborative design to transform public spaces into vibrant, large-scale murals that celebrate local history and foster community pride.

💡 What You'll Learn:

✔️ Turn one cold phone call into a finished town mural

✔️ Get council members, historians, and neighbors behind a single design

✔️ Hit a locked dedication date when weather owns your calendar

✔️ Sit with the middle-of-the-night doubt before committing to a 35-foot wall

✔️ See the century of Bucks County art history most residents drive right past

✔️ Keep your own fear from showing up in the work

✔️ Recognize who a mural actually belongs to once it goes up

🎵 Follow Tony's next commission, or send this to whoever keeps saying their town needs a mural.

💼 Connect with Tony Napoli:

📸 Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/tonynapoliart/

📸 Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/muralsbynap/

📸 Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/anap176/

🎧 Follow Anthony Paul Pinto:

🌐 Website → https://www.buckscoliving.com/

📘 Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/anthonypaulpinto/

📸 Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/anthonyppinto

🔗 LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyppinto/

⭐ Produced by Icons of Real Estate - https://iconsofrealestate.com/

#BucksCoLiving #AnthonyPinto #BucksCountyRealEstate #NewtownPA #PennsylvaniaRealtor #REMAX #BucksCountyCommunity #LocalBusinessSpotlight #PARealEstate #CommunityPodcast

🚀 Erika paid about $200 a season for travel soccer in New Hampshire. That number does not exist anywhere in Bucks County now, and she says so flatly.

She and Alaina run Falls Soccer Club out of Falls Township Park, a 27-year-old volunteer organization serving more than 600 kids. Erika is president and coaches the 2013 Black team. Alaina is marketing director and had no soccer background at all before her sons started playing. Both hold full-time jobs. Between them they have four boys, and every hour of club work happens around that.

🎧 Anthony Pinto hosts Bucks Co Living and works as a top-producing RE/MAX REALTOR® in Newtown with 16+ years across Bucks County and Montgomery County. He knows what families pay to live in this county. Erika and Alaina know what they pay to keep a kid on the field, and this conversation puts numbers on both. A $250 fall sponsorship. A $500 tournament entry a brand-new team has to solve alone. A Philadelphia Union trainer built into fees at a club that charges less than the ones without one. Plus the sideline habit Erika says pulls a kid out of his own game for minutes at a time.

🎧 Hosted by: Anthony Pinto

👤 Guests: 🏡 Erika Duszny – President, Falls Soccer Club | 2013 Black Travel Coach

🏡 Alaina Davis – Marketing Director, Falls Soccer Club

Erika Duszny is the President of Falls Soccer Club in Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania, where she provides strategic direction for intramural and travel soccer programs serving over 600 youth players. Partnering with her is Alaina Davis, the club's Marketing Director, who drives community outreach, digital strategy, and business sponsorships. Together, they oversee player development, regional tournaments, and a premier training partnership with the Philadelphia Union youth program.

💡 What You'll Learn:

✔️ Find a club that includes professional training without charging double for it

✔️ Recognize what your own voice from the sideline does to your kid, and quit doing it

✔️ Separate real pressure in youth sports from the reputation travel soccer carries

✔️ Reach 600 Bucks County soccer families with a $250 local sponsorship

✔️ Fund a $500 tournament entry before it lands on a parent's invoice

✔️ Step away from a volunteer role while you still care about it

✔️ Protect your kid from the burnout that early single-sport specialization causes

🎵 Support a local club: sponsor a team, register a kid, or share this with a Bucks County parent.

💼 Connect with Falls Soccer Club:

🌐 Website → https://fallssoccerclub.com/

📘 Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/fallsSoccerClubBucksCounty/#

🎧 Follow Anthony Paul Pinto:

🌐 Website → https://www.buckscoliving.com/

📘 Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/anthonypaulpinto/

📸 Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/anthonyppinto

🔗 LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyppinto/

⭐ Produced by Icons of Real Estate - https://iconsofrealestate.com/

#BucksCoLiving #AnthonyPinto #BucksCountyRealEstate #NewtownPA #PennsylvaniaRealtor #REMAX #BucksCountyCommunity #LocalBusinessSpotlight #PARealEstate #CommunityPodcast