Algia Mae Hinton

Piedmont blues performer Algia Mae Hinton was born in 1929 in Johnston County, North Carolina; the daughter of Ollie O'Neal (a local legend whose musical skills were so extraordinary that many believed she'd made a pact with the devil), she began playing guitar at age nine, and as a teen was a fixture at area dances and house parties. A gifted buckdancer as well as musician, Hinton spent the better part of her life enduring seasonal farm work; after the tragically premature death of her husband, she was left to raise their seven children alone. She did not make her professiona...