Lester Flatt And Earl Scruggs  - The Ballad Of Jed Clampett

First performance: 09/11/2007

Coverinfo

Bruce played the song once as a snippet:
 
 
2007-11-09 Pier Sixty, Chelsea Piers, New York City, NY 
 
Bruce has never performed The ballad of Jed Clampett live in full, but he played a snippet of it once, during the fifth annual Joe Torre Safe at Home Foundation benefit. Saying that he had been a Yankees fan since he was a kid, he played a riff on The Beverly Hillbillies theme about Joe Torre heading for Beverly Hills and then went right into a take of California sun.
 
 
 

Songinfo

"The Ballad of Jed Clampett" was the theme song for The Beverly Hillbillies TV show and movie, providing the back story for the series. The song was written and composed by Paul Henning, and recorded by bluegrassmusicians Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, with Lester Flatt on vocals. The song was sung by Jerry Scoggins for the opening of the series.  
 
 
 

Other cover versions

  • Weird Al Yankovic merged the first two stanzas of the Ballad with the instrumentals to the Dire Straits song "Money for Nothing" in his 1989 single "Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies*", which was written for his film UHF.

Bruce on the artist

Lyrics

Come and listen to a story about a man named Jed
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed
And then one day he was shootin' at some food
And up through the ground come a bubblin' crude

Oil that is, black gold, Texas tea.

Well the first thing you know ol' Jed's a millionaire
Kinfolk said, "Jed move away from there"
He said Californy is the place you oughta be
So they loaded up the truck and he moved to Beverly

Hills that is, swimmin' pools, movie stars.

Now it's time to say goodbye to Jed and all his kin
They would like to thank you folks for kindly droppin' in
You're all invited back again to this locality
You have a heapin' helpin' of their hospitality

Beverly Hillbillies, that's they call 'em now.
Nice folks, you all come back here.