Al Hopkins

Albert Green Hopkins (1889 – October 21, 1932) 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. Although the group formed up in 1924 in Galax, Virginia,

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, 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

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