Flatt and Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys did much to popularize bluegrass music. Their sound became widely recognized in the 1960s through their recording of “The Ballad of Jed Clampett,” the theme for the network television show The Beverly Hillbillies.
Both Flatt and Scruggs grew up in rural farm homes immersed in rich musical traditions. Both worked in textile mills before becoming full-time musicians. Flatt, who left school at the age of twelve and married at the age of seventeen, began his radio career in 1939 and worked in several bands, including that of Charlie Monroe and his Kentucky Partners, with whom, in 1943, he sang tenor and played guitar and mandolin. In 1945, Flatt was hired as guitarist and lead singer in Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys.
