In the early 1960s, the musical duo Flatt and Scruggs hit the top of the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart with “The Ballad of Jed Clampett.” The banjo-heavy bluegrass song, which served as the opening and closing theme to the CBSsitcom The Beverly Hillbillies, peaked at No. 1 for three non-consecutive weeks in 1962 and 1963, per American Songwriter. It also charted on the Billboard Hot 100, a rarity for a bluegrass song.
Recorded by guitarist Lester Flatt and banjo player Earl Scruggs (with vocals by Jerry Scoggins on the TV version), “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” was released in November 1962, two months after the premiere of The Beverly Hillbillies. The title for the song was a homage to the show’s patriarch, played by Buddy Ebsen, who struck oil on his property in the Ozark Mountains and then moved his clan to a fancy Beverly Hills mansion.
Scruggs’ wife turned the song down, then came up with an idea
While “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” became a big hit, Scruggs’ wife and manager, Louise, almost put a stop to the project. Speaking with NPR in 2003, she recalled showrunner Paul Henning approaching Flatt and Scruggs to perform the TV theme song.
“He called and wanted Earl and Lester to do the theme music,” she said. “And I turned it down at first because of the word ‘Beverly Hillbillies.’ I didn’t know what connotation that was going to take with country people and didn’t want to offend them.”
Scruggs recalled that Henning promised her that “the premise of this show is that the Beverly Hillbillies are going to always be outsmarting the city slickers.’”
After watching the TV pilot, Scruggs agreed to let the duo record the theme song. She then had another idea. “While they were doing the theme music, I said to Perry Botkin, who was the music director at the time, ‘I think that would make a great single,’” she recalled to NPR.
“And so I called Mr. Henning, and I said, ‘What do you think if they, about them recording that for a single for Columbia Records?’ And he said, ‘I think it’s a great idea,'” she shared. “So I spoke to their A&R director, Mr. Don Law, who was doing their records at the time, and so they recorded it three weeks later. And then on, it was released in October, and December 8, 1962, it hit number one in Billboard [country chart]. And it was up in the pop chart too.”
The song appeared on the 1963 Flatt and Scruggs album, Hard Travelin’.
Scruggs also revealed that within a month of The Beverly Hillbillies airing, Flatt and Scruggs became booked for concert dates for a year in advance. She noted that the theme for the classic comedy series “helped country music” become more mainstream.
Another duo was rejected for the project
Beverly Hillbillies creator Henning revealed that executive producer Al Simon originally commissioned someone else to do the theme song. In an interview with The Television Academy Foundation, Henning recalled, “Al Simon had engaged a pair of well-known songwriters, and they came out to Universal and did the song for me, and I said, ‘Well, I’m sorry, but that’s not what I want.’”
He noted that he had “pirated” a record of Flatt and Scruggs but told musical director Botkin he knew he couldn’t “do that on the air.” “And he said, ‘Well, why don’t I go down to Nashville and have them record it?’” Henning recalled.
Henning penned the song with the help of a musical team, and the rest is history.
A ‘Beverly Hillbillies’ reunion
(Photo by CBS Photo Archive on Getty Images)
Not only did they record the song, but Flatt and Scruggs made several cameos on The Beverly Hillbillies. The duo first played for the Clampetts in the 1963 Season 1 episode “Jed Throws a Wingding” and returned multiple times as friends of the family.
Thirty years after “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” topped the charts, the song came full circle in the TV special The Legend of the Beverly Hillbillies. The 1993 mockumentary-style special featured in-character appearances by original cast members Ebsen, Donna Douglas (Elly Mae Clampett), and Max Baer (Jethro Bodine). In one iconic scene, Jed Clampett even danced to his signature tune.