They were also the first to play for a president of the United States (Calvin Coolidge, at a Press Correspondents' gathering) and the first to appear in a movie (a 15-minute Warner Bros./Vitaphone short released along with Al Jolson's The Singing Fool).
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.
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 players to entertain the hospital patients.
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.
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.
[3] Early the next year they made it back to New York (this time in a new Dodge Rector had bought) and, on January 15, 1925, recorded six pieces much more successfully for Ralph Peer at OKeh.
[3] 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.
commenced – at schools, vaudeville shows, fiddlers' competitions, political rallies, and even a White House Press Correspondents' gathering before President Coolidge.