September 30th, 2024

Good mornings folks,

 This past week there has been a plethora of fine instruments coming through the door at Bernunzio Uptown Music. But not just any old instruments….these are some very, very fine things from private collections that have landed at our door. The boys will be cataloging things in this week, but I wanted to give people a heads up. There are some of the finest old Gibson guitars, and some of the finest old banjos that we have ever obtained….the kind of  stuff that are sometimes only found in dreams. Stay tuned during the week to the Bernunzio channel to find out what’s arrived…..

     But more importantly, this past week we got to visit with old friends. Being at the store on Thursday, Friday and Saturday really helps me to be able to connect with people of my past and the people who I have been friends with for so many years. Additionally, being at the store gets me to make some new friends and that’s the way this week has gone old friends and new friends through the revolving door.   

    I took a call earlier in the week. There was a very soft voice on the phone asking if I would be willing to take an instrument as a donation. The voice said it was from their big collection, which had been disbursed a few years ago and they just found a Hungarian dulcimer that they wanted donate to us. Of course, this was none other than the queen of folk music in the Rochester area…. Mitzie Collins…and of course she is someone who should be in the front line of the Rochester Music Hall of Fame. Mitzie is a 1963 graduate of the famed Eastman School of Music. She was classmates with the famous Ron Carter! (She told us the music for their senior prom was absolutely fantastic and of course, why wouldn’t it be!) 

    Mitzie has had quite a bit of difficulty after having suffered a stroke three years ago. She and her husband have moved to assisted living. They sold all of their instruments and their big house in the 19th Ward, but they are still plugging along. On Saturday they drove to the store and we had a lovely visit. Mitzie related some of her history to us and it was so interesting that I thought I would share it here. She told us that she was originally from Dallas, Texas and when she applied to “Eastman” school, her parents said you’re going to move up there and marry a "Yankee" and you’ll never come back!  Of course that’s exactly what happened! Over sixty  years ago, Mitzie found a new home in the upstate New York area but also a complete career. In 1971 she and Allen Hopkins founded the Golden Link Folk Society. Golden Link was first known as “the folk music club” and grew out of a "folk" guitar class taught by Mitzie Collins in 1970-71. As an accomplished multi instrumentalist and especially a hammer dulcimer player, Mitzie also had a record label called Sampler Records and recorded 30 albums of mostly local folk musicians on the label. She is really the "queen of Rochester folk music" and I hope that the folks from the Rochester Music Hall of Fame will soon acknowledge that. Anyway, we took in an interesting Hungarian zither type instrument and we’ll hand it on the wall and think of Mitzie.

With peace,

John Bernunzio

The flea market table is always featuring something interesting. We have lots of instruments that are being sold in as found condition and they can all be found right here.

https://bernunzio.com/flea-market/

As always, Dan Palmer’s old-time jam was a real hoot on Saturday… and they were joined by a musician from Madagascar!