"The Ballad of Jed Clampett" was the theme song for the television seriesThe Beverly Hillbillies and the later movie of that name, providing the introductory story for the series. The song was composed by Paul Henning, and recorded first by bluegrass musicians Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, with Lester Flatt singing. The single phono-album version, released for radio and retail sale, merged both the beginning and ending lyrics of the theme song of the television series. The first two verses comprised the beginning theme, while the ending theme served as the third verse. A banjo-dominated sequence occurs between verses and as the ending fade-out. The song was sung by Jerry Scoggins for the beginning of the series, with instruments played by Flatt and Scruggs. Although the first two seasons of The Beverly Hillbillies lapsed into the public domain, "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" did not and is typically edited from public-domain releases of these episodes.
Charts
The song spent 20 weeks on the Billboard country singles charts, scoring a maximum of number one for three weeks and scored #44 on the Billboard Hot 100 during 1962.
Adaptations
During the original run of The Beverly Hillbillies, special lyrics were inserted into the beginning theme, advertising regular sponsors such as Kellogg's cereals and Winston cigarettes. "Weird Al" Yankovic merged the first two stanzas of the Ballad with the instrumentals to the Dire Straits song "Money for Nothing" for his 1989 single "Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies*", which was composed for his movie UHF. During the late 1970s, the television series Saturday Night Live featured a spoof of the Beverly Hillbillies as a skit about a wealthy family from an oil-rich Mideastern country relocating to Southern California. The theme song for the skit was termed "The Bel-Arabs." During Bill Clinton's presidential administration, Saturday Night Live staged a spoof of the song, substituting Clinton's name for Jed Clampett's and changing the destination from Beverly Hills to the White House. Banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck often plays the balladin concert. Fleck also accompanied Scruggs for a re-recording of the song for the 1993 movie adaptation of The Beverly Hillbillies. On August 13, 2009, national broadcasterQ&A featured a spoof version of the song lampooning the then leader of the Australian Liberal PartyMalcolm Turnbull by Stefan Sojka - Bellevue Hillbilly - making fun of his wealth, his relative unpopularity and his admission that he once tried cannabis.
