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Biography:
For a generation from 1934, Lulu Belle and Scotty were the nation’s leading
Country husband-wife team. They starred on the National Barn Dance from WLS
Chicago for some twenty years and spent a shorter period at the Boone County
Jamboree over WLW Cincinnati. They also graced several motion pictures with
their charm, music, and personalities. Scotty was born in the mountain country
of far western North Carolina where his family had lived for generations and
where he learned to pick the banjo and sing the old ballads. Scott had his heart
set on a college education and worked his way through a year at Duke University
in Durham, North Carolina. Bradley Kincaid visited him that summer collecting
ballads and told him that he could make it on radio, but Scotty was determined
to finish college. Scotty obtained a part-time job at the YMCA in Fairmont, West
Virginia and attended nearby Fairmont State. He soon also began announcing at
WMMN radio, where he took the nickname "Skyland Scotty." After
graduation, Wiseman successfully auditioned for a spot at WLS Chicago. Meanwhile
young Myrtle Cooper, also a native of the Carolina mountain country, had moved
with her parents to Evanston, Illinois, at age 16 and in 1932, had also gotten a
job at WLS, where John Lair had teamed her up with Red Foley as the song-comedy
duo of Lulu Belle and Burrhead. However, this team seemed destined for oblivion
as Foley’s wife, Eva, preferred that the pair not work together. The WLS
management decided to team Lulu Belle and Skyland Scotty. Their act proved not
only a commercial hit on the National Barn Dance, but a romantic one as well
and the pair married on December 13, 1934. In 1936, Lulu Belle won the title
"Radio Queen" in a popularity poll sponsored by Radio Guide magazine,
surprisingly defeating a host of Hollywood and New York-based luminaries. They
remained top stars on the program until 1958 when they retired from active
performing except for two years, (1938-1940) when they were at WLW Cincinnati.
Also beginning in 1938, they periodically journeyed to Hollywood, where they
made a total of seven motion pictures beginning with Shine On Harvest Moon for
Republic and continuing through National Barn Dance. One of their most popular
film efforts, Swing Your Partner cast them as betrothed lovers working in a
cheese processing factory, with Dale Evans as the likable niece of a crotchety
old lady who owns the plant. As recording artists, the duo never made as much of
an impact as they did on radio or on the screen, but they still chalked up some
impressive discs. Scotty cut four solo efforts for Bluebird, in 1933 and Lulu
Belle and Burrhead made four for Conqueror, in 1934. In 1935, they began
recording together for the American Record Corporation, for whom they cut a
variety of Old-Time and novelty songs including, Scotty’s partly recomposed
version of Bascom Lamar Lunsford’s Good Old Mountain Dew, which became the
adaptation used by all later singers of the number. They also contributed some
original love songs such as Remember Me and Have I Told You Lately That I Love
You, for Vocalion in 1939 and Vogue in 1945, respectively, which became Country
standards. In the post-war years they recorded for such labels as Emerald,
London, Ka-Hill, Trutone, and eventually, for Mercury. In the early 50’s,
while still at Chicago, Lulu Belle and Scotty made a widely-heard series of
radio transcriptions titled Breakfast In The Blue Ridge. In 1958, the Hayloft
Sweethearts retired from the National Barn Dance and went back to their mountain
home in Spruce Pine, North Carolina. Scott, who had obtained a Master’s degree
at Northwestern, taught school, farmed, and served as a bank director. In 1971,
Scott was elected into the Nashville Songwriter's Hall of Fame. Lulu Belle
participated in community activities and in the mid-70’s, served two terms in
the North Carolina legislature representing Avery, Burke, and Mitchell counties
(as Democrat in a normally GOP district). They recorded periodically, cutting
three albums for Starday, in the 60’s and a final one for Old Homestead, in
1974. Other recorded material appeared on such labels as Birch and Super. They
also made a few rare concert appearances in the 70’s. Scotty died in 1981
while returning from a Florida vacation. He left an unfinished autobiography
which was subsequently published as Wiseman’s View by the North Carolina
Folklore Society in 1986. Lulu Belle married a retired lawyer and long-time
family friend in 1983. She did a solo album for Old Homestead in 1986.
Surprisingly, little of Lulu Belle and Scotty’s original recordings has been
reissued. One album of 1930’s material appeared in the Old Homestead collector
series and another on the German label Castle from later material. Beginning in
1989, Mar-Lu began releasing radio transcription material in a collector’s
edition of which three had come out by 1993. Lulu Belle died on February 8, 1999
from Alzheimer's disease.
Ivan M. Tribe
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