Al Hopkins

Who was Al Hopkins?

Albert Green Hopkins was an American musician, a pioneer of what later came to be called country music; in 1925 he originated the earlier designation of this music as "hillbilly music", though not without qualms about its pejorative connotation.

Hopkins played piano, an unusual instrument for Appalachian music. The members of the band that brought him to fame came variously from Hopkins' own Watauga County, North Carolina and from Grayson and Carroll Counties in Virginia. Although the group formed up in 1924 in Galax, Virginia, they were based in Washington, D.C., and performed regularly on WRC. In 1927 they became the first country musicians to perform in New York City. They were also the first to play for a president of the United States and the first to appear in a movie.