Mac Wiseman to Release New Album, ‘Songs From My Mother’s Hand’

Bluegrass pioneer Mac Wiseman is releasing a brand-new album, 'Songs From My Mother's Hand.' The record is a collection of songs originally kept by his mother, who wrote down the words to songs she heard on the radio decades ago.

"Her notebooks were the beginning of my life," the 89-year-old says in a press release. "I'd sit at the old kitchen table with a kerosene light and read, go from one page to the next."

The songs, including 'You're a Flower Blooming in the Wildwood' and 'Little Rosewood Casket,' are a lasting gift from mother to son.

"'Songs From My Mother's Hand' is a treasure," Marty Stuart says. "Every song appears as a long-lost story that's waited the better part of a century to be told. The words Mac's mother wrote down come with a mother's knowing and a mother's love. She apparently knew which songs would make one of America's premier balladeers shine in an even more reverential light."

The 2014 Country Music Hall of Fame inductee credits his bout with polio as a child, which left him largely immobile, with his love of music and successful career.

“I was ill a lot,” he tells Nashville's Tennessean. “Had pneumonia six times because of weakness from the leg. My dad would set that phonograph on the corner by the wood stove and give me the old records that were worn or scratched. I listened to those records over and over, trying to understand what they were saying.”

'Songs From My Mother's Hand' will be released on Sept. 23 on Wrinkled Records, and available as a pre-order on iTunes on Aug. 5.