You’re the Girl of My Dreams · I Wonder How the Old Folks Are at Home

Mac Wiseman was born in Crimora, Virginia, in 1925 and grew up in the Shenandoah Valley. Before he recorded under his own name he was bassist and featured singer with Molly O’Day, sang with Flatt and Scruggs’s Foggy Mountain Boys on a Mercury session around November 1948, and sang lead for Bill Monroe on a Columbia session on 22 October 1949. By 1950 he had his own band, the Country Boys, on the Farm and Fun Time show at WCYB in Bristol.

In 1951 he began recording for Dot, Randy Wood’s independent label in Gallatin, Tennessee. The first session took place on 23 May 1951 at radio station KWKH in Shreveport, with the Country Boys, and produced “’Tis Sweet to Be Remembered” (Dot 1062). In 1952 he recorded at WHIN, the Gallatin radio station. A January session with Stringbean Akeman on banjo and Tommy Jackson on fiddle gave “I’ll Still Write Your Name in the Sand” and “Four Walls Around Me” (Dot 1091); “You’re the Girl of My Dreams” and “I Wonder How the Old Folks Are at Home” (Dot 1115) followed from a March date.

From November 1952 Wiseman recorded at Castle Studio in the Tulane Hotel, Nashville. That first Castle session, with Ed Amos on banjo, filled two singles: “Shackles and Chains” with “Goin’ Like Wildfire” (Dot 1150) and “You’re Sweeter Than the Honey” with “Don’t Let Your Sweet Love Die” (Dot 1158), both issued early in 1953. Later Castle dates brought in Chet Atkins, Hank Garland, Rudy Lyle, Allen Shelton and the fiddler Dale Potter. “Keep on the Sunny Side,” cut in July 1953, was paired with “I Love You Best of All” on Dot 1224, and “The Ballad of Davy Crockett” (Dot 1240, 1955) reached No. 10 on the country chart.

From 1955 to 1959 Wiseman was also Dot’s country recording director, and in 1958 he was a founding member and first secretary of the Country Music Association. Between 1956 and 1958 he recorded in Hollywood, with players such as Barney Kessel and Joe Maphis and, on some sides, the Jack Halloran Singers. Back in Nashville in 1959 he worked at Bradley Film and Recording Studio with Owen Bradley producing. A session there on 23 March 1959, with Chet Atkins, Ray Edenton and the Jordanaires, produced “Jimmy Brown the Newsboy,” a No. 5 country hit, and both sides of Dot 16008, “The Preacher and the Bear” and “When It’s Lamplighting Time in the Valley,” issued that December.

In December 1961 Wiseman began recording for Capitol, with Ken Nelson producing and Chubby Wise among the fiddlers; “Your Best Friend and Me” (Capitol 5011, 1963) reached No. 12. In July 1965 he recorded in Montreal, at RCA Victor’s studio, with Ward Allen on fiddle. “Bringing Mary Home” with “Maple Sugar Sweetheart” came out on Sparton in Canada that September and on Wise in the United States in 1966. He went back to Dot in 1966 and later recorded for MGM and RCA. He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2014 and died in 2019.

Session details drawn in part from the Bluegrass Discography.