Jerry Scoggins, whose mellow baritone warbled The Ballad of Jed Clampett to introduce the eccentric, oil-rich Clampett clan from Bug Tussle in The Beverly Hillbillies has died. He was 93.

Mr. Scoggins, the lead singer of the Cass County Boys, who backed Gene Autry and Bing Crosby in the 1940s and 1950s, died Tuesday of natural causes at his home in the L.A. suburb of Westlake Village.

In 1962, the country and western singer was working as a stockbroker and singing only on weekends when he was asked to record a theme song for a television series pilot starring Buddy Ebsen. In the song, that memorable The Ballad of Jed Clampett, bluegrass stars Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs played guitar and banjo while Mr. Scoggins sang the lyrics.

Both the ballad and the series were instant hits. The theme song, whose phrases are still hummed decades later, made the national hit parade in 1963. The series, which ran on CBS from 1962-71, was ranked as the No. 1 program on TV in its first two seasons and at its peak drew as many as 60 million viewers.

In 1993, Mr. Scoggins was a retired octogenarian when he read in Daily Variety that 20th Century Fox was planning a movie based on the popular television series. He called the studio and was put through to music supervisor Steve Smith who said, “Criminy … I didn’t know you were still around.”

The studio had envisioned Johnny Cash or Willie Nelson singing the theme song, but director Penelope Spheeris held out for Mr. Scoggins.

“I wanted to keep as much familiarity in the movie as I could find, and that was a key part: people’s familiarity with his voice,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 1993.

Mr. Scoggins was born in Mount Pleasant, Texas, and began singing and playing guitar on Dallas radio in the early 1930s. In 1936 he formed the Cass County Kids with John “Bert” Dodson and Fred Martin. Autry changed their name to the Cass County Boys when he hired them for his Melody Ranch radio program in 1946.

The trio worked with Autry for 12 years on radio and television, and performed in 17 of the singing cowboy’s movies. They also recorded and performed on TV with Crosby.

The Cass County Boys were inducted into the Western Music Hall of Fame in 1996.

Los Angeles Times is a Tribune Co. newspaper.