Family and Musical Influences
Hopkins was born in Watauga County, North Carolina, an area known for the richness of its folk culture. His father, John Benjamin Hopkins, a sometime North Carolina state legislator, built organs as a hobby, played the fiddle, piano, 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 Washington, D.C., and Hopkins' father went to work for the United States Census Bureau. His sister Lucy later remarked that Al and his brothers and sisters also had plenty of exposure to the popular music of the time.
Read more about this topic: Al Hopkins
Famous quotes containing the words family and, family, musical and/or influences:
“If you are a genius and unsuccessful, everybody treats you as if you were a genius, but when you come to be successful, when you commence to earn money, when you are really successful, then your family and everybody no longer treats you like a genius, they treat you like a man who has become successful.”
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
“A fellow oughtn’t to let his family property go to pieces.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“A pregnant woman and her spouse dream of three babies—the perfect four-month-old who rewards them with smiles and musical cooing, the impaired baby, who changes each day, and the mysterious real baby whose presence is beginning to be evident in the motions of the fetus.”
—T. Berry Brazelton (20th century)
“The first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of nature. Every day, the sun; and after sunset, night and her stars. Ever the winds blow; ever the grass grows.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)