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"All music is folk music, I ain't never heard no horse sing a song."
- Big Bill Broonzy

Tungsten Trio Home
Tungsten Trio Pictures
Biography
Recordings
Whose Fault is This?
Neal's Garage

Folk Music Like it Ought To Be:
Over-enthusiastic!
Berks Co. Heritage Festival
Who's in the band?

Neal Collier - Guitar, Harmonica, and stuff
As a child, Neal’s parents listened to the Kingston Trio, Peter Paul and Mary, The Brothers Four, Burl Ives, Pete Seeger, Bill Monroe, the Stanley Brothers, and a host of other folk and bluegrass bands. Neal listened to those songs over and over. After awhile, a penny had to be placed on the stylus; then a nickel, then a quarter, then a brick. The music of those years seeped into Neal’s blood, brain, and DNA and – try as he might – he couldn’t get it out! Therapy did not seem to work and just as a full-frontal Folk-ectomy was being planned, Neal fell in with a band of like-minded (or if you will: similarly-afflicted) individuals. The Tungsten Trio will go down in history as the only folk band to bring music to the people while at the same time preventing a folkie mountain breakdown.

Chuck Kupferschmidt - Guitar, Banjo, and stuff
It all started when one of Chuck's brothers came home from college with a banjo he'd won in a poker game. The banjo was soon traded for a guitar to which Chuck was instantly drawn. He also listened a lot to his brother's folk music records, some by the Kingston Trio. It was the mid-sixty's; the folk boom was in full bloom. His first guitar was purchased from Montgomery Wards and an upgrade soon followed. In the 1980's he took up the clawhammer banjo after seeing Grandpa Jones on HeeHaw. Having been born in Chicago and raised with mid-western sensibilities, Chuck is, fortunately, sufficiently well grounded to deal with all the banjo related abuse he receives (it's a lot, too!) from his Trio buds.

John Loven - Guitar, Dobro, and relatively little other stuff
As a teen, John was a jazz fan. He arrived at Swarthmore College playing trumpet and valve trombone. Promptly experiencing the loathing and derision reserved for those who practice the trombone in a dormitory, he switched to guitar. John and his wife Sandy produced and hosted The Joyful Noise Coffeehouse in the Collegeville, PA area from 2002 to 2005. It was there that John, Chuck and Neal met and the Tungsten Trio was born.(See Blame.)


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