b. November 8, 1909 / Spruce Pine, NC
d. January 31, 1981 / Gainsville, FL

Singer / Songwriter

Lulu Belle and husband Scotty [Wiseman] were a popular duo during the 1930s credited with helping make country music more popular and accessible to mainstream audiences. Scotty Wiseman also penned songs such as "Remember Me" and "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You" which went on to become country standards. In addition to headlining WLS Chicago's National Barn Dance for close to two decades, the duo appeared in seven motion pictures, including Shine on Harvest Moon.
Lulu was born Myrtle Eleanor Cooper in Boone, North Carolina, and got her start on the National Barn Dance when she was 19. There she worked as a cornball comedian à la Minnie Pearl with Red Foley. Later the station teamed her up with Skyland Scotty Wiseman, another North Carolina native, when Foley's wife began getting jealous of Lulu. It was a good move, as she and Scotty clicked both professionally and personally, and they married in 1934.

Though Lulu Belle and Scotty did record periodically, they were never as popular on wax as they were on the air. The couple left the Barn Dance in 1958, at which point Scotty returned to college and obtained a Master's degree. He then became a teacher, a  farmer, and a bank director. Lulu Belle was active in community activities and eventually went on to serve two terms in the legislature of North Carolina as the Democratic representative for three counties. They also occasionally recorded during these years, and made three albums for Starday during the '60s and one in 1974 for Old Homestead. Scotty died in 1981 and two years later Lulu Belle remarried an old family friend. In 1986, she recorded a solo album for Homestead. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Music Guide

WISEMAN, SCOTTY: Singer, guitarist, banjoist, teacher, songwriter, part of Lulu Belle and Scotty team. Born Spruce Pine, North Carolina, November 8, 1909.

For more than 25 years, two names that were more familiar to mid-westerners than governors or movie stars were those of Lulu Belle and Scotty. Scotty was the nickname of Scott Wiseman (He was also called Skyland Scotty,) a talented individual who went on to gain a master's degree and start a new career as a teacher after many years of prominence as a performer.

Born and brought up in the Spruce Pine region of North Carolina, Scotty learned many traditional songs from his family and friends. During his years in Altamont High School, Crossmore, North Carolina, from 1923 to 1927, he perfected his instrumental style on both guitar and banjo. While performing in his spare time, his eye was on a possible career in teaching. He went to Duke University during 1927-28 and then to Fairmont Teachers College, Fairmont, West Virginia, in 1929, from which he received his B.A. degree in 1932.

Scotty had piled up an impressive record as an artist during his school years. In 1927, he made his radio debut on station WRVA, Richmond, Virginia. During his college years in Fairmont, he performed regularly on station WMMN. The result was a chance to join the National Barn Dance in Chicago in 1933. Scotty decided to forego a non-music career for a while and moved to the big city of the Midwest.

There he soon married another North Carolinian, Myrtle Eleanor Cooper. 1933, as Lulu Belle and Scotty, they went on to become an institution on the show. One of their first hits in 1934 was a song Scotty wrote the previous year, "Home Coming Time." It was the first of many best-selling records on such labels as Conqueror, Vocalion, Bluebird, Brunswick, Vogue, Mercury, and KaHill.

Throughout their career, Scotty wrote or co-wrote many songs, including several with his wife. In 1935, he collaborated with Bascom Lunsford on the comic standard "Mountain Dew." Some of his other compositions were "Empty Christmas Stocking" ('38); "Remember Me" ('40); "Time Will Tell" ('45); "You Don't Love Me Like You Used to Do," "Tell Her You Love Her," "That New Vitamine" ('46); "Dontcha" ('47); "Old Time Bible" ('53); Tenderly He Watches O'er Me" ('54); "Between You and Me" ('55); "Come As You Are" ('57).

During the late 1930s, the fame of Lulu Belle and Scotty spread far beyond Chicago as network broadcasts of the Barn Dance, personal appearance tours, and records made them national figures. They remained regular cast members of the Barn Dance for most of the years between 1933 and 1958. For a while, in the early 1940s, though, they starred on the Boone County Jamboree on station WLW, Cincinnati, which later became the Midwestern Hayride. In 1949, back in Chicago, they were gracing the TV screen on station WNBQ-TV, an association that lasted until 1957.

Scotty and his wife were guest stars on many major shows during the 1950s, including the Grand Ole Opry in 1950 and 1952 and Red Foley's Ozark Jamboree in 1957-58. In the late 1950s, Scotty began taking courses at Northwestern for an advanced teaching degree. In 1958, he received his M.A. Soon after, the Wisemans settled down in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, where Scotty taught speech at Spruce Pine College.

The team also made several movies in the late '30s and early 1940s, including "Harvest Moon" ('38); "Country Fair" ('39); "Village Barn Dance" ('40); "Swing Your Partner" ('42); "Hi Ya Neighbor," "National Barn Dance" ('43). (See also LULU BELLE)

-- Bio from Stambler and Landon, “Encyclopedia of Folk, Country and Western Music.” New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1969

LULU BELLE: Singer, guitarist, comedienne. Born Boone, North Carolina, December 24, 1913.

Two of the names best known to country music audiences from the 1930s into the 1950s were Lulu Belle and Scotty. The comedy and singing of this husband-and-wife team were more familiar to fans in some parts of the country than performances of Grand Ole Opry stars, because of the wide network coverage of the National Barn Dance in the 1930s and '40s.

Lulu Belle was the stage name of Myrtle Eleanor Cooper Wiseman. Like Scott Wiseman, she was born and raised in North Carolina. She learned to play guitar by her teens and performed in local events in the late 1920s. For a while she worked as a store clerk before succeeding in show business. In 1932, she auditioned and made the National Barn Dance in Chicago. A year later she teamed with another young Barn Dance member, starting a long career as part of the act they called Lulu Belle and Scotty, and which eventually became, permanently, Mr. and Mrs. Wiseman.

Before long. Lulu Belle and Scotty were favorites of WLS National Barn Dance audiences. In 1934, their records began to receive wide play, beginning with such hits as "Home Coming Time" and "Whippoorwill Time." In the 1930s and '40s, they scored with such other hits as "Mountain Dew," "Empty Christmas Stocking," "Time Will Tell," "In the Doghouse Now," "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You" and "My Heart Cries for You."

Besides starring on the Barn Dance, Lulu Belle and Scotty had a top rated program of their own on WLS, Breakfast in the Blue Ridge, that remained on the station from 1933 to 1958. They held forth on the Barn Dance for almost 25 years, except for a short sojourn in the early 1940s on the Boone County Jamboree on station WLW in Cincinnati. Their presence helped start the Jamboree toward future network status as the Midwestern Hayride.

They later complemented their radio work on the Barn Dance with TV appearances on station WNBQ-TV in Chicago. The WNBQ  relationship lasted from 1949 to 1957. Lulu Belle and Scotty also guested on many major country shows, including the Grand Ole Opry, Steve Allen Show (in 1955). and Ozark Jubilee. From 1938 to the mid-l940s, they starred in a number of movies.

In 1958, the Wisemans went into semi-retirement in Scott's home town of Spruce Pine, North Carolina. They continued to be fondly remembered by their fans, as shown by the reception to the Starday LPs of their work released in the 1960s. These included "Lulu Belle and Scotty" ('63) and "Down Memory Lane" ('64). (See also WISEMAN, SCOTTY)

-- Bio from Stambler and Landon, “Encyclopedia of Folk, Country and Western Music.” New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1969

-- SOURCE: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~janet/Wiseman.html

LULU BELLE and SCOTTY
Husband/wife duo of '30s--40s. Lulu Belle (b Myrtle Eleanor Cooper, 24 Dec. '13, Boone NC), Scotty Wiseman (b 8 Nov. '09, Spruce Pine NC; d 1 Feb. '81, Gainesville FL) were known as the Sweethearts of Country Music. They were regulars on the National Barn Dance for 24 years, with records on Conqueror, Vocalion, Columbia, Bluebird, Mercury and Starday. Scotty studied to be a teacher and performed as Skyline Scotty on West Virginia radio '28--30, joining WLS in Chicago '33 and teaming with Lulu Belle, who had joined a year earlier and had been singing with Red Foley, then playing bass with the Cumberland Ridge Runners. They married 13 Dec. '34 and became famous with songs 'Whippoorwill Time', 'Remember Me', 'Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?' (covered by Bing Crosby with the Andrews Sisters '50), 'Empty Christmas Stocking', many (like 'Mountain Dew', also a hit for Grandpa Jones), written by Scotty. They appeared in films such as Shine On Harvest Moon '38, County Fair '41, National Barn Dance '44; had their own daily TV show on WNBQ '49. Retired from performing '58; Scotty became a teacher 30 years on. LPs incl. Sweethearts Of Country Music, Sweethearts Still, Down Memory Lane '62--5 on Starday, Have I Told You Lately That I Love You '69 on Old Homestead.

http://www.musicweb.uk.net/encyclopaedia/l/L126.HTM

Originally written and recorded by Bascom Lamar Lunsford, the rights to "Good Old Mountain Dew" (1928, Brunswick Records) were sold to Scott Wiseman at the 1937 National Folk Festival in Chicago, Illinois. Wiseman bought the song from Lunsford for the price of a bus ticket home ($25). and revised the lyrics. The song has since become one of the most recognized folk songs of all time.

--SOURCE: http://hometown.aol.com/bonessgt/honor.htm