Biography
Jerry Bisceglia came into the world on 8 March 1910 in Harrison, New York, USA, and left it in 1986. Esteemed as both a singer and yodeller who handled the guitar left-handed, he left scant traces of his formative years. His first stage work probably occurred with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. After a short period spent as a cowboy, he performed on radio in Yankton, South Dakota—an episode that later prompted assertions he hailed from that state. Most of his life unfolded in New York, where Decca captured 13 sides from him between November 1936 and June 1937, two of them duets alongside Joe Rogers. Ten additional tracks followed with his Lonely Cowboys from October 1937 through February 1938. The repertoire ranged across familiar cowboy ballads such as ‘The Zebra Dun’, sentimental family pieces like ‘A Song For Mother’, the well-known ‘I Get The Blues When It Rains’, and the oddly named ‘Meet Me Tonight In The Cowshed’. His film career amounted to several musical shorts plus one starring vehicle, Six Gun Rhythm, released in 1939; Grand National Pictures folded immediately afterward, forcing him to handle promotion alone. Conscription into the army during World War II blocked any move to another studio that might have extended his singing-cowboy work. Following his discharge he settled back in New York, where he enjoyed years of popularity on WOR radio under the name The Lonely Cowboy. Regular television spots marked the 1950s and 1960s, while he also issued two songbooks and maintained a steady schedule of personal appearances. Original pressings on Decca and Montgomery Ward remain scarce, though ‘The Yodelling Cowboy’s Last Song’ surfaces on the MCA anthology Cowboy Image.
Albums