Mac Wiseman
A Virginia bluegrass and country singer called The Voice with a Heart, a sideman with Flatt and Scruggs and Bill Monroe, a Dot Records executive and a Country Music Association founder, who made "'Tis Sweet to Be Remembered" his lifelong theme.
The Shenandoah Valley and the Monroe years
Malcolm Bell Wiseman was born on May 23, 1925 in Crimora, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley. Both parents sang old ballads at home and he sang in public from 12. After high school he worked in a lab at a manganese mine, then studied broadcasting at Shenandoah Conservatory in Dayton, Virginia and became an announcer at WSVA in Harrisonburg. In 1946 he joined Molly O'Day's band, and in 1948 he was an original member of Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs's Foggy Mountain Boys, with whom he played for under a year and handled the booking. In 1949 he joined Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys for about a year.
In 1951 he made his first session for Dot and his solo career began, with time on the Louisiana Hayride. He was featured on WRVA's Old Dominion Barn Dance in Richmond from 1953 to 1956. His singles included "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" (number 10 on the country chart, 1955), "Jimmy Brown the Newsboy" (number 5, 1959) and "Your Best Friend and Me" (number 12, 1963).
Executive, festival host and elder
Dates differ, but he headed Dot's country department from about 1955 to 1959, moving to California, and in 1958 he co-founded the Country Music Association, serving as its first secretary. In the 1960s he played Newport and Mariposa, opened for Johnny Cash, and played Carnegie Hall and the Hollywood Bowl in the folk revival. He directed the WWVA Jamboree in Wheeling from 1966 to 1970, hosted his own bluegrass festival in Renfro Valley, Kentucky from 1970 to 1983, and in 1986 co-founded the International Bluegrass Music Association. The Bluegrass Hall of Honor inducted him in 1993, the NEA named him a National Heritage Fellow in 2008, and the Country Music Hall of Fame inducted him in 2014.
Later records include Standard Songs for Average People with John Prine (Oh Boy, 2007), Songs from My Mother's Hand (2014) and the autobiographical I Sang the Song (Mountain Fever, 2017), produced by Peter Cooper and Thomm Jutz. He died on February 24, 2019 in Nashville, aged 93. The Hall of Fame's Kyle Young called him a titan of bluegrass music's first generation, though bluegrass never defined him, and Ricky Skaggs praised his kindness toward everyone. He was never made a member of the Grand Ole Opry.
Albums
- 'Tis Sweet to Be Remembered 1957 · Dot
His 1957 LP for Dot, named for the song he first recorded for the label in 1951.
Songs
- 'Tis Sweet to Be Remembered 'Tis Sweet to Be Remembered · 1951
Wiseman's theme song, first recorded for Dot in May 1951 and covered by Flatt and Scruggs and Cowboy Copas.
Sources
- Mac Wiseman, Wikipedia
- Mac Wiseman, Country Music Hall of Fame
- Mac Wiseman, National Endowment for the Arts
- Mac Wiseman remembered by his peers, Bluegrass Today