{"id":1304231,"date":"2019-02-24T13:43:22","date_gmt":"2019-02-24T20:43:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/news\/?p=1803295"},"modified":"2019-02-24T13:43:22","modified_gmt":"2019-02-24T20:43:22","slug":"bluegrass-titan-mac-wiseman-dead-at-93","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/music-news\/bluegrass-titan-mac-wiseman-dead-at-93\/","title":{"rendered":"Bluegrass Titan Mac Wiseman Dead at 93"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"byline\">by <span class=\"author\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/news\/author\/morrise\/\" title=\"Posts by Edward Morris\" rel=\"author\">Edward Morris<\/a><\/span> <span class=\"date\">5h ago<\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>Mac Wiseman \u2014 a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, a founder of the Country Music Assn. and the last surviving member of the Foggy Mountain Boys band \u2014 died Saturday (Feb. 23) in Nashville at the age of 93.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is the end of an important era in bluegrass music,\u201d wrote dobro master Jerry Douglas on his Facebook page.<\/p>\n<p>A much-recorded sideman and bandleader, Douglas currently heads the Earls of Leicester, a band that resurrects and carries forward the sounds and repertoire of the Foggy Mountain Boys. \u201cOne of the most important things Mac Wiseman did was to make himself available to all of us who wanted to know the true story of how the music we love evolved. He imparted some wisdom no one else could have, and I will forever be indebted to him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Malcolm B. Wiseman was born May 23, 1925 in Crimora, Va. He first sang publicly on a Harrisonburg, Va. radio station. After he was stricken with polio, he was given a scholarship to the Conservatory of Music in Dayton, Va., where he studied singing and music theory.<\/p>\n<div class=\"photo\" id=\"37fb8dd8\">\n<div class=\"deferred_content\"><noscript class=\"deferred_content\" data-deferred-info=\"{&quot;type&quot;:&quot;img&quot;}\"><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cmt.mtvnimages.com\/uri\/mgid:file:http:shared:cmt.com\/news\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/02\/Mac-Wiseman-Headshot-1551058285.jpg?quality=0.85&amp;format=jpg&amp;width=480\" srcset=\"http:\/\/cmt.mtvnimages.com\/uri\/mgid:file:http:shared:cmt.com\/news\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/02\/Mac-Wiseman-Headshot-1551058285.jpg?quality=0.8&amp;format=jpg&amp;width=481 481w, http:\/\/cmt.mtvnimages.com\/uri\/mgid:file:http:shared:cmt.com\/news\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/02\/Mac-Wiseman-Headshot-1551058285.jpg?quality=0.8&amp;format=jpg&amp;width=660 660w, http:\/\/cmt.mtvnimages.com\/uri\/mgid:file:http:shared:cmt.com\/news\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/02\/Mac-Wiseman-Headshot-1551058285.jpg?quality=0.8&amp;format=jpg&amp;width=768 768w, http:\/\/cmt.mtvnimages.com\/uri\/mgid:file:http:shared:cmt.com\/news\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/02\/Mac-Wiseman-Headshot-1551058285.jpg?quality=0.8&amp;format=jpg&amp;width=980 980w, http:\/\/cmt.mtvnimages.com\/uri\/mgid:file:http:shared:cmt.com\/news\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/02\/Mac-Wiseman-Headshot-1551058285.jpg?quality=0.8&amp;format=jpg&amp;width=1200 1200w, http:\/\/cmt.mtvnimages.com\/uri\/mgid:file:http:shared:cmt.com\/news\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/02\/Mac-Wiseman-Headshot-1551058285.jpg?quality=0.8&amp;format=jpg&amp;width=1500 1500w, http:\/\/cmt.mtvnimages.com\/uri\/mgid:file:http:shared:cmt.com\/news\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/02\/Mac-Wiseman-Headshot-1551058285.jpg?quality=0.8&amp;format=jpg&amp;width=1800 1800w\" title=\"Mac Wiseman Headshot\" class=\"js-srcset-img shortcode-image portrait\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p><\/noscript><\/div>\n<div class=\"photocredit\">Courtesy of Mac Wiseman<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Over the next few years, he sang and played with Molly O\u2019Day (1945-47) Lester Flatt &amp; Earl Scruggs\u2019 Foggy Mountain Boys (1948) and Bill Monroe\u2019s Bluegrass Boys (1949). His reedy, tenor voice and affinity for singing sentimental ballads eventually earned him the sobriquet of \u201cthe Voice With a Heart.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He was welcomed into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 1993.<\/p>\n<p>Wiseman served as country A&amp;R director for Dot Records (1956-59), the label for which he also recorded such chart hits \u201cThe Ballad of Davy Crockett\u201d and \u201cJimmy Brown the Newsboy.\u201d Other songs he became closely identified with included \u201cLove Letters in the Sand,\u201d \u201cTis Sweet to be Remembered,\u201d \u201cGoin\u2019 Like Wildfire\u201d and \u201cWe Live in Two Different Worlds.\u201d By the time he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2014, he estimated he had recorded more than 800 songs.<\/p>\n<p>In 1958, Wiseman helped found the Country Music Assn. \u2014 a trade group designed to widen the acceptance and commercial viability of country music \u2014 and served as its first secretary.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe gave not only ideas, but he did the work, as well,\u201d said the late Jo Walker-Meador, the longest serving executive director of the CMA as she formally inducted Wiseman into the Hall of Fame. \u201cHe was invaluable to me [because] I knew nothing about country music then.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Charlie Daniels, who performed \u201cJimmy Brown the Newsboy\u201d for Wiseman\u2019s induction, said, \u201cHe\u2019s been an idol of mine since I learned my first three chords on the guitar.\u201d Confined to a wheelchair during his final years, Wiseman was celebrated for holding court for his friends and admirers, whom he invariably regaled with stories and songs.<\/p>\n<p>He recorded dozens of albums between 1957 and 2017, often pairing up with such other seminal talents as Merle Travis, Doc Watson, Lester Flatt, the Osborne Brothers, Del McCourty and John Prine. It was with Prine that he recorded the deliciously titled collection <em>Standard Songs for Average People<\/em> (2007).<\/p>\n<p>His final two albums were <em>Songs From My Mother\u2019s Hand<\/em> (2014), based on his mother\u2019s handwritten notebook of songs she savored, and <em>I Sang the Songs<\/em> (2017), tunes related to his 2015 autobiography, <em>Mac Wiseman: All My Memories Fit for Print<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve tried to be true to myself,\u201d Wiseman said during his Country Music Hall of Fame induction, \u201cand give back the best that I could. \u2026 I think a reason for the great endurance [of country music] is that it\u2019s such a slice of life. \u2026 I firmly believe that people don\u2019t change. We just get a new batch.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"author\">\n<div class=\"description\">Edward Morris is a veteran of country music journalism. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee, and is a frequent contributor to CMT.com.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/news\/1803295\/bluegrass-titan-mac-wiseman-dead-at-93\/\" target=\"_blank\">via:: CMT News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Edward Morris 5h ago Mac Wiseman \u2014 a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, a founder of the Country Music Assn. and the last surviving member of the Foggy Mountain Boys band \u2014 died Saturday (Feb. 23) in Nashville at the age of 93. \u201cThis is the end of an important era [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[159],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1304231","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-11 17:33:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1304231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304231\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1304231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1304231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1304231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}