Albert Green Hopkins (1889 – October 21, 1932)
, Southern Folklife Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Accessed 19 August 2007. was an American musician, a pioneer of what later came to be called

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

; in 1925 he originated the earlier designation of this music as "

hillbilly Hillbilly is a term (often derogatory) for people who dwell in rural, mountainous areas in the United States, primarily in southern Appalachia and the Ozarks. The term was later used to refer to people from other rural and mountainous areas west ...

music",David Sanjek, "All the Memories Money Can Buy: Marketing Authenticity and Manufacturing Authorship", p. 155–172 in Eric Weisbard, ed., ''This is Pop'', Harvard University Press, 2004. (cloth), (paper). p. 156–157. though not without qualms about its pejorative connotation. Hopkins played

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

, an unusual instrument for

Appalachia Appalachia () is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York State to northern Alabama and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Newfoundland and Labrador, Ca ...

n music. The members of the band that brought him to fame (which was known by several names: The Hill Billies, Al Hopkins' Original Hill Billies, and Al Hopkins and His Buckle Busters) came variously from Hopkins' own

Watauga County Watauga County ( )
from the North Carolina Collection's website at the

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

, and from Grayson and Carroll Counties in

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

.Archie Green
Hillbilly Music: Source & Symbol (part 2)
, Southern Folklife Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Accessed 19 August 2007. David Sanjek says "North Carolina and

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

", but it is an aside in an article not focused on Hopkins or his group. Although the group formed up in 1924 in

Galax, Virginia Galax is an independent city in the southwestern part of the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 6,720. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines the city of Galax with neighboring Carroll County for statisti ...

, they were based in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, and performed regularly on

WRC WRC may refer to: Broadcasting stations * WRC-TV, a television station (virtual channel 4, digital channel 34) licensed to Washington, D.C., United States * Several radio stations in the Washington, D.C. area: ** WTEM, a radio station (980 AM) l ...

. In 1927 they became the first country musicians to perform in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. They were also the first to play for a president of the United States (

Calvin Coolidge Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; ; July 4, 1872January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. Born in Vermont, Coolidge was a History of the Republican Party (United States), Republican lawyer ...

, at a Press Correspondents' gathering) and the first to appear in a movie (a 15-minute

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

Vitaphone Vitaphone was a sound film system used for feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects made by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1931. Vitaphone was the last major analog sound-on-disc system and the only one th ...

short released along with

Al Jolson Al Jolson (born Eizer Yoelson; June 9, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was a Lithuanian-American Jews, Jewish singer, comedian, actor, and vaudevillian. He was one of the United States' most famous and highest-paid stars of the 1920s, and was self-bi ...

's ''

The Singing Fool ''The Singing Fool'' is a 1928 American musical drama part-talkie motion picture directed by Lloyd Bacon which was released by Warner Bros. The film stars Al Jolson and is a follow-up to his previous film, ''The Jazz Singer''. It is credited wit ...

'').

Family and musical influences

Hopkins was born in

Watauga County Watauga County ( )
from the North Carolina Collection's website at the

, North Carolina, an area known for the richness of its

folk culture Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, r ...

. His father, John Benjamin Hopkins, a sometime North Carolina

state legislator A state legislature is a legislative branch or body of a political subdivision in a federal system. Two federations literally use the term "state legislature": * The legislative branches of each of the fifty state governments of the United S ...

, built

organs In biology, an organ is a collection of tissues joined in a structural unit to serve a common function. In the hierarchy of life, an organ lies between tissue and an organ system. Tissues are formed from same type cells to act together in a f ...

as a hobby, played the

fiddle A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, th ...

, and organ, and had a good repertoire of traditional fiddle tunes. His mother, Celia Isabel Green Hopkins, sang old ballads and church music, among other tunes. Hopkins and his siblings all showed musical talent early. In 1904 the family moved to

, and Hopkins' father went to work for the

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the ...

. His sister Lucy later remarked that Al and his brothers and sisters also had plenty of exposure to the

popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fun ...

of the time.

Early career

In 1910 Al Hopkins launched his professional music career. He and his younger brothers Joe, Elmer, and John formed a group called the Old Mohawk Quartet, which played regularly at Washington's Majestic Theater. About 1912 the family built a large new house at 63 Kennedy Street in an area of Northwest Washington, D.C., that was not yet built out. Hopkins' mother and the younger children summered at the family farm in Gap Creek, North Carolina, so their contact with rural life remained strong. In the early 1920s Hopkins' oldest brother, Jacob, a surgeon and musician, established a rural hospital/clinic in Galax, Virginia, where he often invited local

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

players to entertain the hospital patients. Doctor Hopkins was renowned and active as a surgeon and musician. Al Hopkins worked for him in Galax as hospital office manager and secretary. Joe, who would later play with Al in his recorded bands, worked at this time as a Railway Express agent in White Top Gap, Virginia. Joe played

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

here and there in his spare time, including at his brother's clinic. In late spring 1924, Joe met fiddler and journeyman barber Alonzo Elvis "Tony" Alderman in the latter's Galax barber shop. The two of them and Al Hopkins were soon a trio. John Rector, a local general store keeper and five-string banjo player who has already, recorded decided that they were better than his current band, and joined them. They soon traveled to

to record, a three-day trip in a

Ford Model T The Ford Model T is an automobile that was produced by Ford Motor Company from October 1, 1908, to May 26, 1927. It is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, which made car travel available to middle-class Americans. The relati ...

. That initial recording session was a disaster: the technology for recording such groups was still in its infancy. That wasn't their only bad fortune that year: Doctor Hopkins died July 26, 1924. Early the next year they made it back to New York (this time in a new

Dodge Dodge is an American brand of automobiles and a division of Stellantis, based in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Dodge vehicles have historically included performance cars, and for much of its existence Dodge was Chrysler's mid-priced brand above P ...

Rector had bought) and, on January 15, 1925, recorded six pieces much more successfully for

Ralph Peer Ralph Sylvester Peer (May 22, 1892 – January 19, 1960) was an American talent scout, recording engineer, record producer and music publisher in the 1920s and 1930s. Peer pioneered field recording of music when in June 1923 he took remote rec ...

OKeh Okeh Records () is an American record label founded by the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, a phonograph supplier established in 1916, which branched out into phonograph records in 1918. The name was spelled "OkeH" from the initials of Ott ...

Hill Billies and Buckle Busters

Lacking a band name, at the OKeh session Hopkins (whose now-urban father had been kidding him about the direction his life was taking) told Peer "We're nothing but a bunch of hillbillies from North Carolina and Virginia. Call us anything." In fact, no one in the band conformed to the stereotype of a backwoods hillbilly. The Hopkins brothers father was a legislator and

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

; Rector owned a store; Alderman had grown up in an isolated cabin, but his father was a

surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ca ...

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing ...

, and

justice of the peace A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...

. Still, they became The Hill Billies, and although they soon had qualms about the name (Alderman would later say, "Hillbilly was not only a funny word; it was a fighting word."), fellow musician

Ernest Stoneman Ernest Van "Pop" Stoneman (May 25, 1893 – June 14, 1968) was an American musician, ranked among the prominent recording artists of country music's first commercial decade. Biography Born in a log cabin in Monarat (Iron Ridge), Carroll Count ...

encouraged them to keep it: "Well, boys, you have come up with a good one. Nobody could beat it." With Hopkins' doctor brother dead, there was no reason to stay in Galax, and the band based itself in

, where they soon became regulars on WRC; on the radio, Hopkins mother sang with them on the ballads. On May 8, 1925, they played at an enormous fiddler's convention in

Mountain City, Tennessee Mountain City is a town in and the county seat of Johnson County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 2,383 at the 2000 census and 2,531 at the 2010 census. It is the northeasternmost county seat in Tennessee. In addition, at an elevatio ...

, sponsored by the local

Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...

. At this time

Charlie Bowman Charles Thomas Bowman (July 30, 1889 – May 20, 1962) was an American old-time fiddle player and string band leader. He was a major influence on the distinctive fiddle sound that helped shape and develop early Country music in the 1920s and 19 ...

joined the band as an additional fiddler. Other members would later come and go, but this completed the classic lineup. They played gigs from

South Carolina )''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. commenced – at schools, vaudeville shows, fiddlers' competitions, political rallies, and even a White House Press Correspondents' gathering before President Coolidge. For

, they recorded only on the 1925 session produced by Ralph Peer. Later, they would record for

Vocalion Vocalion Records is an American record company and label. History The label was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Company, a maker of pianos and organs, as Aeolian-Vocalion; the company also sold phonographs under the Vocalion name. "Aeolian" was ...

(as The Hill Billies), and Brunswick (as Al Hopkins and His Buckle Busters). The Vocalion and Brunswick recordings were identical except for the band names. Hopkins and his band tried at one point to control the name "Hill Billy" as it applied to music. They incorporated their group January 21, 1929, as Al Hopkins' Original Hill Billies, but ultimately accepted that their band name had become the name of a genre of music. Hopkins and his band continued to perform until his death in a car accident in

Winchester, Virginia Winchester is the most north western independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Frederick County, although the two are separate jurisdictions. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines the city of Winchester wit ...

, in 1932. The band broke up after his death.

Band lineup

* Al Hopkins, piano * Joe Hopkins (birth and death dates unknown), guitar * Alonzo Elvis "Tony" Alderman (September 10, 1900 – October 25, 1983), fiddle * John Rector , 5-string banjo John Rector was an old man at the time of the recordings he did not die in 1985, that would have been another John Rector of Galax, Virginia who was a fiddler. * Charlie Bowman (July 30, 1889 – May 20, 1962), fiddle, joined in 1925 Source:

Notes

External links

Al Hopkins & His Buckle Busters
on honkingduck.com. As of August 2007, this has 10 recordings in

RealAudio RealAudio, or also spelled as Real Audio is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks and first released in April 1995. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fid ...

format. * Archie Green
Hillbilly Music: Source & Symbol (part 2)
Southern Folklife Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, used heavily as a reference here, is itself rich with references and citations. {{DEFAULTSORT:Hopkins, Al 1889 births 1932 deaths People from Watauga County, North Carolina American country pianists American male pianists Road incident deaths in Virginia Musicians from Washington, D.C. Country musicians from North Carolina 20th-century American male musicians 20th-century American pianists