Lulu Belle and Scotty National Barn Dance

Myrtle Eleanor Cooper (December 24, 1913 – February 8, 1999) and Scott Greene Wiseman (November 8, 1909 – January 31, 1981), known professionally as Lulu Belle and Scotty, were one of the major

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

acts of the 1930s and 1940s, dubbed The Sweethearts of Country Music.

Career

Myrtle Eleanor Cooper (Lulu Belle) was born in

Boone, North Carolina Boone is a town in and the county seat of Watauga County, North Carolina, United States. Located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina, Boone is the home of Appalachian State University and the headquarters for the disaster a ...

, United States; Wiseman was from Spruce Pine, North Carolina. Lulu Belle and Scotty enjoyed enormous national popularity thanks to their regular appearances on ''

National Barn Dance ''National Barn Dance'', broadcast by WLS-AM in Chicago, Illinois starting in 1924, was one of the first American country music radio programs and a direct precursor of the ''Grand Ole Opry''. ''National Barn Dance'' also set the stage for other ...

'' on

WLS-AM WLS (890 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station in Chicago, Illinois. Owned by Cumulus Media, through licensee Radio License Holdings LLC, the station airs a talk radio format. WLS has its radio studios in the NBC Tower on North Columbus Driv ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, a rival to WSM-AM's ''

Grand Ole Opry The ''Grand Ole Opry'' is a weekly American country music stage concert in Nashville, Tennessee, founded on November 28, 1925, by George D. Hay as a one-hour radio "barn dance" on WSM. Currently owned and operated by Opry Entertainment (a divis ...

''. ''Barn Dance'' enjoyed a large radio audience in the 1930s and early 1940s with some 20 million Americans regularly tuning in. The duo married on December 13, 1934, one year after Wiseman became a regular on ''Barn Dance'' (Cooper had been a solo performer there since 1932). The duo is best known for their self-penned classic "

Have I Told You Lately That I Love You? "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?" is a popular song written by Scotty Wiseman for the 1944 musical film, '' Sing, Neighbor, Sing'' and performed by Lulu Belle and Scotty. It was their greatest hit and one of the first country music song ...

", which became one of the first country songs to attract major attention in pop circles, and was recorded by many artists in both genres. Cooper was the somewhat dominant half of the duo with a comic persona as a wisecracking country girl. Her most famous novelty number was " Daffy Over Taffy". In 1938, she was named Favorite Female Radio Star by the readers of ''Radio Guide'' magazine, an unusual recognition for a country performer. Lulu Belle and Scotty recorded for record labels including

Vocalion Records Vocalion Records is an American record company and label. History The label was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Company, a maker of pianos and organs, as Aeolian-Vocalion; the company also sold phonographs under the Vocalion name. "Aeolian" was ...

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

Bluebird Records Bluebird Records is a record label best known for its low-cost releases, primarily of kids' music, blues and jazz in the 1930s and 1940s. It was founded in 1932 as a lower-priced RCA Victor subsidiary label of RCA Victor. Bluebird became known ...

; and

Starday Records Starday Records was an American record label producing traditional country music during the 1950s and 1960s. History The label began in 1952 in Beaumont, Texas, when local businessmen Jack Starnes (Lefty Frizzell's manager) and Houston record di ...

, in their final sessions during the 1960s reprising their old hits. They were among the first country music stars to venture into feature motion pictures, appearing in such films as ''Village Barn Dance'' (1940), ''

Shine On, Harvest Moon "Shine On, Harvest Moon" is a popular early-1900s song credited to the married vaudeville team Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth. It was one of a series of moon-related Tin Pan Alley songs of the era. The song was debuted by Bayes and Norworth in the Z ...

'' (1938), ''County Fair'' (1941) and ''

The National Barn Dance ''The National Barn Dance'' is a 1944 American comedy film directed by Hugh Bennett and written by Lee Loeb and Hal Fimberg. The film stars Jean Heather, Charles Quigley, Robert Benchley, Mabel Paige, Charles Dingle and Pat Buttram. The film was ...

'' (1944). The couple retired from show business in 1958, except occasional appearances, going on to new careers in teaching (Wiseman) and politics (Cooper). Cooper served two terms from 1975 to 1978 in the

North Carolina House of Representatives The North Carolina House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the North Carolina General Assembly. The House is a 120-member body led by a Speaker of the House, who holds powers similar to those of the President pro-tem in the North Ca ...

as the Democratic representative for three counties. In 1977, she gave a memorable speech in which she revealed that she had been raped on the country music circuit.Myrtle Wiseman interview
Charlotte.com; accessed November 7, 2015. Scotty Wiseman was inducted into the

Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame was established in 1970 by the Nashville Songwriters Foundation, Inc. in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. A non-profit organization, its objective is to honor and preserve the songwriting legacy that is u ...

in 1971. After his death in 1981 from a heart attack in

Gainesville, Florida Gainesville is the county seat of Alachua County, Florida, Alachua County, Florida, and the largest city in North Central Florida, with a population of 141,085 in 2020. It is the principal city of the Gainesville metropolitan area, Florida, Gaine ...

, Cooper married Ernest Stamey in 1983; and in 1989 recorded her first album in 20 years for a small traditional music label, Mar-lu Records out of

Portageville, Missouri Portageville is a city in New Madrid and Pemiscot counties in the U.S. state of Missouri. The population was 2,942 according to the 2020 Census. History A post office called Portageville has been in operation since 1873. The community takes its ...

. Myrtle Stamey died in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, aged 85. In 1999,

Old Homestead Records Old Homestead Records was a record label based in Michigan specializing in preserving and reissuing recordings of traditional country and bluegrass artists. History John W. Morris launched Old Homestead Record company in 1971 to release new and ...

released a retrospective album ''Early & Great''.

References

External links

Interview between Lulu Belle and Big John Parker on WWL in 1989

Lulu Belle and Scotty at HillbillyMusic.com

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lulu Belle And Scotty Country music duos Musical groups from North Carolina Starday Records artists Columbia Records artists Musical groups established in the 1930s 20th-century American musicians Musicians from Appalachia 20th-century American politicians 20th-century American women politicians