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When Karl and Jackie Dieterichs first opened their folk music shop in 1966, it wasn’t exactly easy to find a banjo in Bucks County.

But the Dieterichs’ vision changed that.

The Bucks County Folk Music Shop in New Britain is the oldest family-run acoustic stringed instrument store in the United States. Housed in a former abandoned farmhouse, the store has become a hub for bluegrass and folk music enthusiasts in the region.

Karl also started the Bucks County Folk Song Society in the early ‘60s, which is still going strong, and the store’s website lists more than 40 bluegrass and folk music jams in the Delaware Valley region.

Karl died in May 2023, a loss that many members of the local bluegrass community continue to mourn.

“People have come in and say, ‘Gee, I didn’t know Karl passed away,’” his wife, Jackie Dieterichs, said. “And we really miss him …  We miss his brain, his knowledge and his companionship.”

Now, Jackie and the couple’s oldest daughter, Kim Dieterichs, continue the family business and its bluegrass legacy.

‘Music from the heart’

Bluegrass came to national airwaves in the 1940s, but some songs in the genre go back centuries, tracing their origins to Irish, Scottish and English immigrants who settled in Appalachia in the 1600s, as well as the gospel and blues traditions of Black communities in the South.

Part of bluegrass’s enduring power, Kim said, is rooted in the songs themselves.

“There’s honesty in it. There’s stories in it,” she said. “And I think that that speaks to a lot of people. Regardless of what era we’re in or what’s happening in the climate of the world.”

Often, the stories told in bluegrass and folk songs are sad. They’re about lost or unrequited love, death, war, poverty and struggle. But they’re also about faith, remembrance and hope — and present a window into everyday life for communities living in remote, rural parts of the country.

“It’s music from the heart,” said Ben Jarnutowski, founder of the Doylestown Bluegrass Jam, who started the group in 2001 after taking banjo lessons at the Bucks County Folk Music Shop. “To be able to be a part of it makes my heart feel good.”

A family affair

Jackie first met Karl when she became a member of Dieterichs’ folk group, The Odes. The couple bonded over their shared love for music and became partners in life and art.

In addition to running the store, Karl manufactured instruments, including Irish bodhráns, hammer dulcimer stands and ukuleles. He started repairing bluegrass and folk instruments, and curated a roster of teachers so interested students could take lessons.

Jackie was the first guitar teacher at the store, and from the beginning pitched in on all fronts.

“I kind of was a jack of all trades, master of none,” she said. “Wherever I needed to be plugged in, I was plugged in. And then I got pregnant twice with kids and that took my time as a priority. So I was kind of out of the business for their informative years, for about five years for each of them, and then slowly worked back in again.”

The children were initiated into the business at an early age. Kim remembers helping at the store with her sister, counting banjo or guitar parts.

“My dad being my dad was like, ‘Alright, I’m not paying you by the hour, I’m paying you by the piece, right.’ So making sure that we weren’t going to take advantage of getting paid,” she recalled. “But that was sort of my entry into it.”

In her young adult years, Kim drifted away from the family business, but came back to the store and started helping out in her late 20s and early 30s. As her kids have gotten older, she’s become even more involved and is at the store every day, she said.

“I always say to folks that I stand on the shoulders of two giants, which are my mom and my dad,” Kim said.

‘They take the time to find what you need’

In an increasingly on-demand, online shopping economy, the kind of experience the shop offers is rare — and has cultivated a thriving bluegrass community throughout the region.

Customers return to the store, Kim said, in part because of the care and attention they receive.

“We have folks that have been coming to us since we opened, sometimes they bring their kids or their grandkids and now great grandkids,” Kim said.

Longtime customer Ray Bizup, of Feasterville, remembers going to five different music shops in Philadelphia in search of the perfect guitar.

“Nobody really wanted to spend time if you weren’t ready to purchase a guitar, within five minutes, they were walking away,” he recalled.

But at the Bucks County Folk Music Shop, Karl spent two hours with him, pulling down every guitar in the store to test it out.

“I said, ‘Karl, I really want to buy a guitar, but none of these are the sound that I’m looking for,’” Bizup recalled. “‘But when I know what that guitar is,’ I said, ‘I’m going to come up here and buy it from you, because you were the only one that took the time with me.”

Karl told Bizup to wait a minute, and went to the house to get Jackie’s guitar for Bizup to test out.

“Within a minute I knew that was the guitar,” Bizup said, and they proceeded to order the same model for him to purchase. “That guitar means so much to me.”

Bizup was able to tell Karl how much the experience meant to him before he passed away, and recorded a video for Kim and Jackie to share with him.

For Bizup, his experience represents “the beauty of that shop.”

“They take the time to find what you need, what you’re looking for,” he said.

The Bucks County Folk Music Shop is open Tuesdays through Fridays, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturdays from 10 .m. to 4 p.m. The Doylestown Bluegrass Jam takes place every Wednesday evening at the Hilltown German Club in Perkasie, Bucks County.