Albert Green Hopkins (1889 – October 21, 1932) was an American old-time 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 (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, 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 count