When I think of Earl, I think of “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” rather than “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” because the first time I ever heard that was on the set of The Beverly Hillbillies, and it was immediately catchy. It was just great and I loved it!
—Max Baer Jr., actor, The Beverly Hillbillies
On the night of Wednesday, September 26, 1962, America was introduced to a man named Jed Clampett, a poor mountaineer who unexpectedly became a millionaire while “shootin’ at some food.” The oil-rich country bumpkin and his clan from the southern backwoods would soon load up their truck and move into a mansion waiting for them in Beverly Hills, California. And not only did Jed and all his kin strike it rich with “black gold” and “Texas tea,” so did Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs with a brand-new hit song that chronicled the complete backstory of The Beverly Hillbillies. The overnight success of this television phenomenon would elevate Flatt and Scruggs to new heights that were unimaginable, particularly for musicians rooted in bluegrass.
For the next nine years, Earl’s banjo would become a weekly prime-time fixture in millions of living rooms across the United States, and later, around the world. The series piqued the interest of the mainstream populous to the clear, crisp sound of the five-string banjo and the awesome syncopated three-finger roll of Scruggs style. It wouldn’t be long before the end of season one, when audiences would get their first glimpse of the banjo man and his partner as they sang about their undying love for Jed’s cousin Pearl on an airplane bound for Los Angeles. This would be the first of seven guest appearances made by the duo as old friends of the Clampetts from back home.
The success of the rural-based sitcom, along with its infectious theme song, cannot be underrated, as Earl Scruggs recounted in a 1993 interview with the authorized Beverly Hillbillies biographer Stephen Cox: “No doubt about it, the Beverly Hillbillies theme was one of our biggest pushes Lester and I had in our career. A great boost to us. I cannot measure the help that it did for us.” So “set” a spell, take your shoes off, and discover the tale of how this iconic TV series married up with Flatt and Scruggs without firing a single shot.
After becoming a part of the hootenanny circuit in 1959, Flatt and Scruggs received a booking in the summer of 1962 for multiple performances at one of Los Angeles’s premier folk music coffeehouses, the Ash Grove. Having completed his pilot episode for The Beverly Hillbillies, the show’s creator, producer, and head writer, Paul Henning, stepped into the famed club on Melrose Avenue during Flatt and Scruggs’s run and quickly became a huge fan—so much so that he went back a few more times. It’s not known at this point if he had already composed the ditty that would become “The Ballad of Jed Clampett,” but upon his visits to the coffeehouse, he was convinced that Lester and Earl were the perfect musicians to play the theme music for his new series. “Paul always just said that he loved their music and so he decided to go with them,” says Cox. “Paul never mentioned any other considerations as far as having someone else do it. He really, really enjoyed Flatt and Scruggs. He loved banjo music and felt that it was the type of music that just went back to rural America. It was the type of music he enjoyed all the way through his life.”
It wasn’t too long after Flatt and Scruggs’s appearances at the Ash Grove that Henning contacted their manager, Louise Scruggs, about the boys recording the program’s theme. Surprisingly, Mrs. Scruggs rejected Henning’s offer without hesitation. In 2003, Louise recollected her phone conversation with Paul Henning on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross (printed with permission) and described the elements that changed her mind:
I turned it down at first because of the word[s] “Beverly Hillbillies.” I didn’t know what connotation that was going to take with country people and didn’t want to offend them. So he said, “Well, the premise of this show is that the Beverly Hillbillies are going to always be outsmarting the city slickers.” So, anyway, we talked about that two or three times, and he ended up sending the pilot to Nashville for us to see. And after we looked at it, we thought, “Okay, that looks all right.”
Dissatisfied with executive producer Al Simon’s handpicked songwriting team’s compositions, Paul Henning was in dire need of a theme song. Out of sheer necessity, he penned his own lyrics to a simple melody that he heard in his head.[1] The result was the first television theme to illustrate a backstory. Who knew that his storied ditty would inevitably be copied by other shows, such as Gilligan’s Island, F-Troop, and The Brady Bunch. With the aid of a friend who played the piano, Henning’s “Ballad of Jed Clampett” was polished up and ready to record.[2] However, just prior to music director Perry Botkin’s trip to Nashville, there would be one change that Paul would make before Flatt and Scruggs could pick a note—enter Jerry Scoggins.
As a former backup singer for Gene Autry and Bing Crosby, Scoggins had become a Los Angeles–based stockbroker who continued his singing act on weekends. The richness of his smooth-sounding voice not only fit the show’s title track very well; it had a resonating bass tone common among television announcers of that era. With Flatt and Scruggs headquartered in Nashville and constantly touring, Scoggins became a convenient luxury for Henning as Earl Scruggs explained in 1993:
That didn’t bother Lester or me. Paul had told us he preferred Jerry Scoggins to do it because he said that, from time to time, they’d have to redo the theme for commercials and add new words. Jerry was out there in California and they wouldn’t have to fly us out there every time they wanted to change the words for the Winston commercials or the Kellogg’s Corn Flakes commercials. That’s the way it should’ve been.
At Columbia Records in Nashville, Lester, Earl, and the Foggy Mountain Boys met with Botkin to record “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” instrumentally. Scruggs provided the details of that session from his interview with Stephen Cox:
The way we did it was really hard. The way it was recorded the first time we had to figure it out. See, when I play a tune, I try to put the syllables and the words into my picking if I can. And boy, that song was full of syllables. The up-tempo, the faster part, is the easy part, but the slower part was a booger, and I rassled with it, but I finally nailed it down. I arranged it mostly, and Lester just played the chords along with it. That was no problem for him. The banjo’s really up front in the song. And as I remember, Paul Henning loved what we did with it.
Louise Scruggs instantly recognized the theme’s potential to be a hit single, not to mention the added publicity for her husband and his partner. She shared her account of it on NPR in 2003:
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.” And so I called Mr. Henning and I said, “What do you think about them recording that for a single for Columbia Records?” And he said, “I think it’s a great idea.” So I spoke to [Columbia’s] A&R director Mr. Don Law, who was doing their records at the time, and so they recorded it three weeks later.
On October 10, 1962, the very day Columbia released Flatt and Scruggs’s new single “The Ballad of Jed Clampett,” showcasing Lester’s voice over Earl’s up-tempo banjo licks, the third installment of The Beverly Hillbillies aired, which had amazingly shot to the top slot on the A. C. Nielson ratings list. Earl and Lester were now on the fast track toward commercial fame. “After the show started airing,” Louise Scruggs remembered in 2003, “I started getting calls for them for dates and concerts, and within about a month, I had them booked up for a year in advance, so it was tremendous.” Beverly Hillbillies biographer Stephen Cox further elaborates:
Paul was the type of person that told the cast, and I’m sure Flatt and Scruggs as well, that if you hang in here with me, everyone’s going to get some exposure on this. And as the show hit number one, which was like the [third] week—it shot to number one so quick—it made all of their heads spin. Paul knew that everyone could benefit from it, including Flatt and Scruggs, and they did by releasing their own single.
Just two months later, on December 8, the same day they performed their historic concert at Carnegie Hall, Flatt and Scruggs’s recording of “Jed Clampett” hit number one on Billboard’s country music chart—the first time for any bluegrass band. And if that wasn’t enough, the single crossed over to Billboard’s pop music Hot 100 list, where it peaked at number 44 that same month.[3]
By the end of 1962, The Beverly Hillbillies had solidified itself as the highest-rated series in America, while “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” was topping the music charts. Flatt and Scruggs were now poised to be in a league of their own. But for Paul Henning, who was a big fan of theirs, just hearing the duo wasn’t enough. He thought all of America should see them on the show as guest stars.
The ongoing shtick in all of their appearances was that Lester and Earl were old friends of the Clampetts, from back home, who had hit the big time as musical entertainers. In each of the episodes, they couldn’t wait to eat Granny’s “vittles” and would often have to pick a tune for their meals. If their spouses, Gladys (played by Joi Lansing) and Louise (portrayed by Midge Ware), came with them, one of the gags was that the wives knew best. However, on a more serious note, audiences were treated to the musical talents of Flatt and Scruggs, particularly Earl’s banjo and his signature songs.
Their first appearance was on February 6, 1963, in an episode called “Jed Throws a Wingding.”[4] In keeping with the story of Lester and Earl yearning to see their long-lost love, Pearl Bodine (Jed’s cousin and Jethro’s ma, played by actress Bea Benaderet), Henning composed another number that also became a Flatt and Scruggs single, “Pearl, Pearl, Pearl.” This comedic novelty song of the duo taking friendly jabs at each other was the very first recording to feature Earl Scruggs singing two solos, in one of which he claims that Lester Flatt “slicks his hair with possum fat.”
In March 1964, Earl and Lester came back in the episode “A Bride for Jed,” which featured a rendition of “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” that was beautifully transitioned from an old Flatt and Scruggs album jacket next to Miss Jane Hathaway’s turntable in Milburn Drysdale’s office to a live performance of the duo in the Clampett mansion’s foyer. Their next visit to Beverly Hills, on March 31, 1965, in “Flatt, Clampett and Scruggs,” brought the boys to Jed’s old cabin, now situated on the estate grounds where Granny has secluded herself, longing to return to the simple country life she cherished back home. Attempting to cheer up Granny, Elly May assembles a band of critters outside to play cheerful music that includes her chimpanzee, Bessie, with a toy banjo. Unbeknownst to Granny, Lester and Earl are also outside with Jed. They commence with Scruggs’s “Flint Hill Special,” which Granny thinks is coming from the chimp. When Jed calls out to Granny asking her to see who was making the music, she responds, “I’ve seen ’em, especially that little goomer with the banjo!” Earl responds with a comedic look of shock as he pivots to Lester.
Other episodes included “Flatt and Scruggs Return” on March 16, 1966, which features them singing “Little Brown Jug” in Jane Hathaway’s car as well as picking “Earl’s Breakdown” in the fancy eatin’ room. We see Earl playing the guitar for the first time on the show while he and Lester accompany Gladys Flatt (Lansing) singing “You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You” as she comes down the foyer staircase. Later, Scruggs retrieves his banjo for a sing-along of “The Wreck of the Old 97” at the program’s conclusion. “Foggy Mountain Soap” on December 14, 1966, reprised another performance of “Flint Hill Special” as the boys awaited the filming of a laundry detergent spot. On March 29, 1967, they were back in “DeLovely and Scruggs.” This particular episode was more centered on Lester Flatt, as he tries to foil Gladys’s acting ambition with a second honeymoon in the Clampetts’ cabin. After Gladys shrinks Lester’s suit before a publicity photographer arrives, both he and Earl borrow Jethro’s and Elly May’s tattered clothes for the shoot, where they entertain with Scruggs’s classic instrumental “Reuben.”
Riding the wave of popularity from the 1967 motion picture Bonnie and Clyde, which incorporated Earl’s 1949 recording of “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” Flatt and Scruggs visited Jed and his kin for the last time on November 20, 1968, in an episode appropriately titled “Bonnie and Flatt and Scruggs.” At the outset, audiences saw Lester and Earl arrive at the Clampett mansion in a 1930s automobile dressed in gangster suits with prop machine guns, similar to the duds they donned on the cover of their latest album for Columbia, The Story of Bonnie & Clyde. In fact, they tell the Clampetts that they just came from a photo session for their latest record.
However, the quick one-liner to promote their recent album paled in comparison to the enormous promotion Earl received for his new instructional book Earl Scruggs and the 5-String Banjo in the same episode. Hillbillies cast member Max Baer Jr. (Jethro Bodine) surmises how the publication wound up in the script: “I think Paul Henning just did it because he was the writer and creator of the show and Earl might’ve said something to him or Earl’s wife might’ve said something to him. So I think probably it was just Paul Henning that Earl mentioned something to, and Paul said, ‘Yeah, I’ll just write that in.’ It was not a big deal.”
Oddly enough, one of the funniest gags in that episode was based on Earl’s book. Shortly after Flatt and Scruggs sing a spoof of the Hillbillies theme in honor of Commerce Bank president Milburn Drysdale in the Clampett kitchen, Earl plugs his instruction book to Jane Hathaway. Just then, Jethro enters with a line to Miss Jane and then grabs the book from Earl. This exchange follows:
JETHRO: (reads aloud) Earl Scruggs and the 5-String Banjo—(looks at Earl). Hey, you learnin’ how to play the banjo, Mr. Scruggs?
LESTER: (interjects) Answer the boy, Earl.
EARL: (grinning) Yeah, Jethro, I’m learning.
Just like in the movie Bonnie and Clyde, “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” is peppered throughout the program, though it’s an updated version from the one used in the film. In addition to Earl and Lester’s performance of it in the drawing room with Jed blowing on the jug, in their final scene the duo plays the melody of “Jed Clampett” outside the Commerce Bank as the musical act for Drysdale’s hokey “Super Banker” TV commercial, which they were suckered into participating in by the money-loving bank president.
Though The Beverly Hillbillies’ “first run” continued for another three years, it did so without any further guest appearances by Flatt and Scruggs, as they broke up just three months after “Bonnie and Flatt and Scruggs” aired. However, all was not lost as the Hillbillies and their old friends from back home would live forever in the world of syndicated reruns.
Through the years that Earl Scruggs appeared on The Beverly Hillbillies, his personal demeanor never changed. He didn’t think any more of himself than he did before his association with the network series began. Max Baer Jr. characterizes Earl’s amiable shyness on the production set:
He had that funny little smile on his face all the time. When you’d sit on the set waiting for the shots, you could talk to him, and he’d answer your questions, and anything you’d want to talk about he’d talk about it. But he’d never initiate it, you know. I guess he didn’t want to infringe on your space. That’s the way it appeared to me. I don’t know how comfortable he felt about talking about a variety of things. He really didn’t talk very much, and so we were always cordial, and we would laugh together, and people would tell jokes, but he wasn’t a person that would tell a joke or tell a story. He seemed very relaxed on the set, and the only time he got uptight was when he had to talk. But [as] soon as you put that banjo in his hands, he was right at home. That was his baby.
Unlike most sitcoms of today, and even some from yesterday, the Hillbillies wasn’t shot using multiple cameras; rather, it was produced with a single camera à la film. In 1993, Scruggs discussed some of the more technical aspects of the production along with his feelings at the time:
I was nervous up until I got on the set. We’d only do a few minutes at a time, and once we got on the set it was so well organized with stand-ins and all, they didn’t wear us out. They used one camera and they’d have to measure off the lights and reset. Some of the tunes we did on the show were prerecorded, and we’d play along with the tune. It looked like we were playing. Curt Massey [the music director after Perry Botkin] had a studio at his house and we’d record them there, but some of the songs we did on the set were live. They made us look great on every episode we did. Lester and I looked forward to doing the shows.
And one of the ways that Henning ensured Flatt and Scruggs were shown in the best possible light was to limit their dialog. Knowing up front that the boys were not actors, he kept their lines to a minimum, especially for Earl, who seemed to have less to say than his musical partner. Max Baer Jr. recalls Earl’s nervousness and how the banjo eased his fears:
Earl was not an actor, and Earl was very self-conscious, in my opinion, except when he had the banjo. When he had that in his hands, he had no problems at all. He was totally in command. He was so good at what he did that he let the banjo speak for him. He was nervous, as far as stage fright was concerned, of speaking, but he was totally comfortable with the banjo in his hands. Take the banjo out of his hands, then he became nervous because he didn’t feel protected and safe. That’s why on the show Lester did most of the talking.
Ironically, though, it was Earl Scruggs that Paul Henning thought of when it came time for him to cast his next television series, Petticoat Junction. Earl spoke freely about the opportunity that “could’ve been” in 1993:
Paul thought I’d be good as a banjo-playing train engineer on Petticoat Junction, but that never worked out. With all the good things about Flatt, he had a little bit of jealousy and if he thought I was getting too much recognition, it’d grind on him a little bit. Certain things I’d have to back off a little bit. If I’d taken that part, it might have broken us up then, I don’t know. I rassled with the idea, but I thought, well, I’m more known for my picking than my acting, so I’d better stay with the picking. I know Paul would have made me look good. I know that. I’ve often wondered how life would’ve been if I’d done that.
Even though he declined the role of Charlie Pratt, which ultimately went to comedic singing cowboy Smiley Burnette, Scruggs did record, with Lester Flatt, a powerfully banjo-driven version of the theme song to Petticoat Junction as a single in 1964 and, later, the theme for another one of Henning’s programs, Green Acres, in 1966 with June Carter. Ten years after the cancellation of The Beverly Hillbillies, CBS made a poor attempt to resurrect the Clampetts in a 1981 TV movie called The Return of the Beverly Hillbillies. Not only was the script bad and the budget small, but Earl’s participation was reduced to a single scene. “There’s a wingding, which is a big party, and Earl is one of the musicians there and that’s pretty much it,” notes Stephen Cox. “Paul just wanted to add some authenticity and bring in some people from the series.”
Twelve more years would pass before Earl Scruggs would fly to Hollywood again to be part of a Beverly Hillbillies production once more. The 1993 Legend of the Beverly Hillbillies paired Earl with Jerry Scoggins and Roy Clark (filling in for Lester Flatt, who passed away in 1979) to re-create the unforgettable recording of “The Ballad of Jed Clampett.” Cox, who served as a consultant on the project, opens a window into the production:
It was supposed to be a “mockumentary” for CBS as a TV special. It didn’t turn out the way the writers really wanted it. There [were] three main writers, and they were all three very hip—I mean, just great writers that came from, like, Saturday Night Live and that type of show and humor. By the time they wrote their treatment and it got to CBS, CBS just mutilated it, and they didn’t quite get the humor and were asking questions with these memos like, “Do we have to have Jethro play so dumb?” In the offices, we were just laughing because there was great stuff in the script, but the people at CBS didn’t get it. They weren’t even fans of the Hillbillies, but they just knew there would be some sort of ratings involved. So the documentary or mockumentary didn’t turn out as well as we would’ve liked.
I didn’t even realize that Jerry Scoggins was still alive, and they found him. Scoggins sounded exactly the same; he had these incredible pipes. So when they told me that they were going to fly in Earl Scruggs and partner him with Roy Clark and have Jerry retool the song a little bit, I couldn’t believe it. I thought, oh my god, this is historic! This is incredible! And I went to the studio and watched these guys get together, and it was phenomenal. It just gave me chills watching these three legends.
And so goes the tale of a man named Jed whose story gave Earl Scruggs and his five-string a “heapin’ helpin’ of hospitality” that he had never known before, as recapped by Louise Scruggs in 2003: “It eventually ended up being shown in seventy-six countries around the world. So what it did actually insofar as spreading country music, it helped country music and it helped, well, the banjo in particular, because Earl gets mail from people all over the world.”
See interview with Paul Henning by Bob Claster for the Archive of American Television, September 3, 1997, http://emmytvlegends.org/interviews/people/paul-henning.
Paul Henning recalled employing the help of a friend who played the piano for “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” in his interview with Bob Claster for the Archive of American Television (1997) via their official website (emmytvlegends.org).
See Billboard’s Charts Archives, http://www.billboard.com/archive/charts.
See airdates and episode names in Stephen Cox, The Beverly Hillbillies: A Fortieth Anniversary Wing-Ding (Nashville: Cumberland House, 2003).