Randy Escobedo - Posted - 09/26/2012:  18:51:19

Today is the 50th anniversary of The Beverly Hillbillies airing on CBS television. Thank goodness Louise Scruggs helped make this possible. Thank you Lester and Earl! This has always been my favorite show growing up. A great cast of talent. One classic show.

The Ballad Of Jed Clampett - The Beverly Hillbillies

Fathand - Posted - 09/26/2012:  19:20:26

I recently bought the 1st four seasons on DVD at Walmart for $5. 

16 hours of hilarity.

quote:

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Originally posted by Randy Escobedo

Today is the 50th anniversary of The Beverly Hillbillies airing on CBS television. Thank goodness Louise Scruggs helped make this possible. Thank you Lester and Earl! This has always been my favorite show growing up. A great cast of talent. One classic show.

 

 

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f5loar - Posted - 09/26/2012:  19:32:40

When the show first aired Sept. 1962 it turned alot of people onto bluegrass music including my brother and me.  He had to have a banjo to learn the Scruggs style after seeing that show and I needed a guitar to back him up like Lester.   My brother died in 1996 but 50 years later I'm still picking.  I still like to sing the theme song adding the rare 4th verse about the banker.  Due to syndication it's still a hit. 

Rick Polston - Posted - 09/26/2012:  19:34:57

A  true classic

banjonoah - Posted - 09/26/2012:  19:46:55

I think it is really awesome that Earl couldn't read standard notation yet his autograph is on that piano arrangement. The whole era of piano sheet music - for popular songs - seems like it is coming to an end. So many people are going back to the "play it by ear" approach. Nothing wrong with that. Sheet music is a great way to share music, but with our digital age, it seems just as easy to send someone an mp3. I could go on and on and on about that - what a cool era - when you wanted to hear a new song you just walked down to the local music shop and someone (or yourself) would just play it on the piano for you!!!!

I got into it tonight with a good friend on facebook who was debating whether she should buy the new spotify premium or some other comparable service. In my usual "devil's advocate" fashion, I responded that she should save her money and just get the free spotify - that she doesnt need to listen to it on her phone. She happens to work at the apple store and is 24/7 attached to her iphone.

That turned into another comment from me, saying "what happened to the good old days when we used to go to the record store to buy an album/cassette/cd of the stuff we wanted?" She responded "bleh..."

I LOVE that we have all of this technology and would not trade it at all. I myself have even started using spotify. I am guilty of burning CD's from other people instead of paying for them or buying the mp3s online. I am not ashamed to admit that I even use the slow it down software on occasion to break down that awesome lick I always wanted to learn.

But, all of you who grew up before the age of the internet have to in some ways agree, there was something SO SPECIAL about going to buy an album, or borrowing one (not burning one) from a friend, or having to wait that extra time to meet up with your buddy to trade a song or two on the guitar. Taping movies on VHS when they came on TV and carefully pausing during the commercials, or HANDWRITING a letter to someone. Wearing out your cassette (or the grooves on your album) by playing the same phrase over and over and over and over again to learn it on your instrument.

The equivalent to banjo hangout back then was a bunch of people who were lucky enough to live in the same place and share the same oddball interest (no offense intended, my wife and most of my friends still don't get my addiction to banjo). New tunes came by either being lucky enough to meet up with someone who knew something you didn't or by you having the gift yourself of being able to write your own.

Many of you may think of me as young - 33 years old yes. I was born in 1979 - yes in the grand scheme of things, it is young . Hell, I still feel young myself. But I grew up in a very interesting time. When I was in high school, there was no internet as we know it. The only thing we did on computers was type up a paper - no internet or web research. We still used the card catalog at the library, and I even had to carry quarters to call my parents from a payphone. But my younger brother, only 3-4 years apart from me, did everything on the internet at the same high school - one of the best in the country. That is so bizzarro to think that his same high school experience was SO drastically different from mine, only 3 years apart!!!!

This seems so long ago, but really, I graduated in 1997 - so this was really only about 15 years ago.... 15 years go by and now there are NO payphones and when you want to know pretty much anything in the world at all, all you have to do is search for 5 minutes or less on your computer (or now your small black box smaller than your wallet) and you will find your answer. I have friends who can't get to a place they have been to many times before, and less than 2 miles away - without using a GPS, and they are very intelligent people. What a ******* weird time we are in these days. I teach Jr. High music in an urban area, and I am starting to have students who have never heard of the Beatles, or even Mozart!!!!! What country/planet are we living in?

Randy, sorry to take your post in a whole different direction (and moderators, do what you will to move or do whatever to my post), but really man, when I saw that Earl Scruggs signature on that piano score, it stirred up all kinds of stuff in my oddball brain!!!!

Thanks for posing that, I'd love to get a copy of that score sometime so I can hear what it sounds like on a piano!!!!!

-Noah

Randy Escobedo - Posted - 09/26/2012:  19:59:03

Great photo Rick! It's good to see you have a special piece of Clampett history too . Remember the episode where Granny was so homesick? She wanted to go home. Jed called Lester and Earl to come surprise her. I love the scene where Betsy the chimp has a banjo. Granny thinks its her playing it. To her surprise it was Earl. That episode brings me to tears with laughter.  

Rick Polston - Posted - 09/26/2012:  20:05:18

Yes that show cracked me up. There was an episode with Granny and some hippies and they were talking about smoking crawdads - I roll in the floor when I see that!. I had a neat photo of Lester and Earl standing outside the Bank but it got damaged in a fire we had. I would love to find that one again.

dmiller - Posted - 09/26/2012:  20:08:16

Back when this show first aired on TV - - our entire family sat down to watch it.

Those werre the days when TV was actually a "plus" for families getting together.

Kinda like the older days when families gathered around the radio on Saturdays,

to listen to WSM and the Grand Old Opry.  How times have changed, eh?

Randy Escobedo - Posted - 09/26/2012:  20:17:14

How about some Foggy Mountain Soap? Remember that one?

There is also the episode when Earl showed his new banjo instruction book to Jethro and he asked Earl if he was learning how to play the banjo!

fgodbey - Posted - 09/26/2012:  20:58:54

Sept 26 is also Donna Douglas' birthday.  How old is she??   A gentleman never asks...   Many happy returns to the gal who made Elly May Clampett come to life!

imdb.com/name/nm0235031/

--FG

dmiller - Posted - 09/26/2012:  22:13:42

quote:

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Originally posted by fgodbey

Sept 26 is also Donna Douglas' birthday.  How old is she??   A gentleman never asks...  

Many happy returns to the gal who made Elly May Clampett come to life!

imdb.com/name/nm0235031/

--FG

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Wow - - Just looked this up.  She's 79 years old today!

Hankon5 - Posted - 09/26/2012:  22:23:20

Thanks Randy --alot of memories on watching the program every week--That program got me to love the Banjo sound. Unfortunately, I didn't start playing 'till late in life. All those years I believed it was a SPECIAL instrument because Earl made it special. I retired and found time to accomplish one of my dreams (I guess at this stage it's a bucket list!) to play the BG banjo. I believe no one will ever sound like him, since he had golden hands! But, playing his music  as well as other pieces, fills me with great happiness, and accomplishing what I never thought would happen---playing in front of people. Thanks Randy---great post!

Edited by - Hankon5 on 09/26/2012 22:26:39

kmwaters - Posted - 09/27/2012:  06:32:28

Bela Fleck and many other great pickers have talked about the Ballad of Jed Clampett as the song they heard on TV and made them want to learn to play the banjo.  No telling how many people were inspired by the same things.  Earl lives on.

tymburrs - Posted - 09/27/2012:  06:59:45

A show like that, now so many years back. Hope they never clamp-it!

kaybone - Posted - 09/27/2012:  08:55:04

I think they wrote that by the Cee-ment pond after possum lunch on the fancy eatin' table

kaybone - Posted - 09/27/2012:  08:55:29

I think they wrote that by the Cee-ment pond after possum lunch on the fancy eatin' table

The Old Timer - Posted - 09/27/2012:  16:00:48

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeell doggies!

DannyB4 - Posted - 09/28/2012:  04:18:09

...played a gig last friday and did the BHB theme...the crowd went nuts!!....they knew all the verses, ( black folks, white folks, it did'nt make any difference)...Happy Birthday!!!!!....btw, remember when Gladys and Louise came to the Clampett mansion after being at the beauty parlor , wanting to meet Pearl?....instead they saw Elly Mae?!!.....wowsers!!!!!!....peace