Born and raised in Hattiesburg, Craig Wiseman began his extraordinary music career here before moving to Nashville, Tennessee, where he became one of country music’s most prolific and celebrated songwriters and a successful music business entrepreneur.  Hundreds of artists recorded Wiseman’s songs, including Brooks & Dunn, Faith Hill, Tracy Lawrence, Patty Loveless, Roy Orbison, Dolly Parton, Blake Shelton, and Morgan Wallen. Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw each recorded career-defining hits by the GRAMMY winner. His work earned Wiseman numerous songwriting awards and recognition as the most-recorded country songwriter of his generation.

Craig Wiseman, born August 4, 1963, and raised two blocks north of here on Donwood Place, passed this park on his walk home during his eight years attending Thames Elementary School. After losing his father in a 1974 plane crash, Wiseman gravitated to music, absorbing every genre from classic crooners to his mother’s Disney storybook albums to whatever was playing on local radio station WFOR. Craig took up drums at eleven, and later, the guitar. He became drum captain in the Hattiesburg High School band and played after-school gigs with local rock and country bands, where he began writing songs. While attending the University of Southern Mississippi, Wiseman performed in local clubs and honed his gift for songwriting. Following a chance visit to Vanderbilt University with his mother, the young musician moved to Nashville in 1985 and joined a local cover band, playing seven nights a week for twenty-five dollars a night. He regularly pulled all-nighters in pursuit of his dream of professional songwriting, taking morning meetings up and down Nashville’s publishing and recording hub, Music Row.

In 1989, Craig landed his first artist-recorded cut with “The Only One,” a song co-written with Wesley Orbison that appeared on Wesley’s father Roy Orbison’s final studio album, Mystery Girl. The following year, Wiseman signed a contract with Almo/Irving music publishing, and his career boomed. His radio-friendly, up-tempo songs quickly became a staple on the country music charts. He achieved his first #1 Billboard hit with Tracy Lawrence’s “If the Good Die Young” in 1994, followed by a string of seminal country anthems, including Kenny Chesney chart-toppers “She’s Got it All,” “The Good Stuff,” and “Summertime;” #1 hits by Tim McGraw such as “Everywhere,” “The Cowboy in Me,” and the song that changed both Wiseman’s and McGraw’s career trajectories, “Live Like You Were Dying.” With Blake Shelton, Wiseman topped the charts writing “Hillbilly Bone” and “Boys ‘Round Here,” and he found meaningful success with Brooks & Dunn, who recorded inspirational fan favorite, “Believe.” His incomparable catalog has garnered over 400 cuts, 150 singles, thirty #1 hits—and counting—with over 100 million albums sold.

Awards and accolades filled his shelves: multiple NSAI Songwriter of the Year honors; ASCAP Country Songwriter of the Year; ACM and CMA Song of the Year trophies; and a GRAMMY for Best Country Song. In 2014, performing rights organization ASCAP honored Wiseman as the most-performed country songwriter in that association’s 100-year history. He received the Mississippi Governor’s Award for the Arts and was inducted into the Nashville Songwriter’s Hall of Fame in 2015. In 2003, Wiseman founded Big Loud Shirt, his own publishing company. Shortened to Big Loud, Wiseman’s song factory evolved into an expansive musical legacy encompassing an artist management company, record label, and venture capital firm. Giving back to his community, Wiseman hosted his annual “Stars for Second Harvest” benefit concert from 2005 to 2023, raising over $2 million dollars to fight hunger.