Guitar Nubbit
American vocalist

Alvin Hankerson (November 23, 1923 – June 30, 1995), better known as Guitar Nubbit, was an American blues guitarist and singer. His most notable song was "Georgia Chain Gang", which was originally released in 1962 as a single on Bluestown Records.
He was the uncle of the folk music singer and autoharp player Dorris Henderson.
Life and career
Hankerson was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. During a hurricane when he was three years old, he lost the tip of his right thumb, which led to his lifelong nickname, Nubbit (sometimes shortened to Nub). He spent most of his formative years in Georgia and then relocated to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1945. He attempted to teach himself to play the guitar, but after a year of trying he gave up the instrument in 1949. However, by 1954, he could afford guitar lessons and enlisted Bill Bryant, a former music teacher from Rocky Mount, North Carolina, to teach him. Guitar Nubbit eventually mastered the rudiments of the instrument. He then performed locally, playing and singing mainly his own compositions, whilst maintaining his daytime job as a barber.
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This entry incorporates text from “Guitar Nubbit” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.