- Amid new recognition from his home state, Wiseman reflects on his journey to the big leagues of country music.
When country music songwriter and impresario Craig Wiseman first went to Nashville in the early 1980s, he already had a contract in hand. But it wasn’t the one he eventually signed.
On a week off from the road with his band, the Hattiesburg native bummed a ride to Music City to have a real industry mind review the proposal a bandmate’s lawyer cousin had recently handed him.
Wiseman may not have had an appointment, but he had determination and gumption to spare. He brought it all to the city’s famed Music Row and convinced a junior attorney to read it for $20. After flipping through pages of legalese, he explained to Wiseman that he’d be signing away his publishing rights, one of the main ways songwriters make money.
“He finally throws it down,” Wiseman says, “and he goes, ‘I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you 20 bucks not to sign that.’”
When Wiseman finally settled in Nashville for good two years later, he began a songwriting and management career that has produced 29 No. 1 hits and either launched or amplified the arcs of artists like Morgan Wallen, Miranda Lambert, HARDY, Tim McGraw, Blake Shelton, and many others.
On March 27, leaders in Hattiesburg and the state of Mississippi celebrated Wiseman’s contributions to country music with a historical marker on the Mississippi Country Music Trail at the city’s Midtown Green Park and a proclamation naming the day in his honor. The event also served as the dedication for the Wiseman Bandshell at the park.
“I’ve been in Nashville since I was 21 years old,” he says, “but in the last several years I’ve been coming back to Hattiesburg more. Getting those markers and that bandshell there, it really made me reconnect with the town.”
But the celebration was a public acknowledgment of something country music insiders have known for years: Craig Wiseman isn’t just a hitmaker, he’s a cornerstone of the modern country music business.
When he moved to Nashville in 1985, Wiseman committed to becoming a professional songwriter and musician. He found work playing drums in bars, but the pay was far less than what he was used to earning.
“I went from making $800 a week in Mississippi to $25 a night in Nashville, playing six hours a night, seven nights a week,” he says. But it gave him a foot in the door, and more importantly, it gave him a look at what he was up against.
“You start looking at these guys going, wait a minute, man, these songwriter guys are basically the Michael Jordans, and I’ve been playing pickup basketball with my brother in the driveway,” he says. “It just makes you work harder.”
Over time, Wiseman broke into the business and built a catalog of more than 350 cuts, including “Believe” by Brooks & Dunn and “Boys ‘Round Here” by Blake Shelton. In 2003, 2005 and 2007, he was named ASCAP Songwriter of the Year, and in 2009, the Nashville Songwriters Association International named him Songwriter of the Decade.
Still, the songs that resonate most often start with something personal. Take his Grammy-winning tune “Live Like You Were Dying,” which Tim McGraw took to No. 1 for ten weeks and won a Grammy award for Best Country Song in 2005.
“A buddy of ours thought he had cancer,” Wiseman says. “It turned out to be nothing, but for two weeks, he thought he was dying. We were catching up about that, and it got us talking about other people who had gone through stuff like that. I had an uncle who got a rare form of leukemia. He went to the Mayo Clinic, retired from his job, and booked a shark dive. That was the start of the song — what if, when something like that happens, you don’t just shut down, you get busy living?”
But Wiseman’s work isn’t limited to writing. In 2003, he launched his own publishing company, Big Loud Shirt, later shortened to Big Loud. The company expanded to include management and a record label, launching artists like Florida Georgia Line and Morgan Wallen.
“I started signing writers, spotting these kids with potential,” he says. “I signed Chris Tompkins, and a year later, he had a song called ‘Before He Cheats’ with Carrie Underwood. He won a Grammy, then another one a few years later. There’s nothing better than helping someone reach their potential.”
The philosophy is rooted in Wiseman’s own experience. “Songwriting is a lot like professional sports,” he says. “You’re learning the game, getting better every year. You go from high school level to college to pro.”
His approach has never been about writing hits for the sake of it. “You’re supposed to write songs that shut people up,” he says. “Songs that make people stop and listen.”
That simplicity also fuels his work outside the music industry. For 15 years, he’s hosted The Stars of Second Harvest benefit concert at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, raising more than $1.5 million for the Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee.
Wiseman’s reconnection with his hometown has given him new momentum.
“Nashville is such a boom town, and the music business is such a grind,” he says. “To go back to Hattiesburg and just get back to the pure goodness of it, the sweetness of the people — it’s been refreshing.”
Jim Beaugez
