Robert Russell "Chubby" Wise (October 2, 1915, Lake City

Lake City, Florida

Lake City is the county seat of Columbia County, Florida, in the United States. In 2009, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the city's population at 12,614. In addition, it is the Principal City of the Lake City Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is composed of Columbia County, and had an...

, Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

 - January 6, 1996) was an American bluegrass

Bluegrass music

Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...

 fiddle

Fiddle

The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...

r.

Wise began playing fiddle at age 15, working locally in the Jacksonville

Jacksonville, Florida

Jacksonville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Florida in terms of both population and land area, and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. It is the county seat of Duval County, with which the city government consolidated in 1968...

 area. He joined the Jubilee Hillbillies in 1938, then began playing with Bill Monroe

Bill Monroe

William Smith Monroe was an American musician who created the style of music known as bluegrass, which takes its name from his band, the "Blue Grass Boys," named for Monroe's home state of Kentucky. Monroe's performing career spanned 60 years as a singer, instrumentalist, composer and bandleader...

's Blue Grass Boys in 1942, including dates at the Grand Ole Opry

Grand Ole Opry

The Grand Ole Opry is a weekly country music stage concert in Nashville, Tennessee, that has presented the biggest stars of that genre since 1925. It is also among the longest-running broadcasts in history since its beginnings as a one-hour radio "barn dance" on WSM-AM...

. He worked with Monroe through 1948, then played with Clyde Moody

Clyde Moody

Clyde Moody , also known as the "Hillbilly Waltz King" and sometimes as "The Genial Gentleman of Country Music" was one the great founders of American Bluegrass music....

 in 1948-49. He also played with the York Brothers, Flatt & Scruggs, and Connie B. Gay.

In 1954, Wise became a member of Hank Snow

Hank Snow

Clarence Eugene "Hank" Snow was a Canadian-American country music artist. He charted more than 70 singles on the Billboard country charts from 1950 until 1980...

's Rainbow Ranch Boys, again appearing at the Grand Ole Opry; he remained with the group until 1970. Alongside this he worked as a session musician

Session musician

Session musicians are instrumental and vocal performers, musicians, who are available to work with others at live performances or recording sessions. Usually such musicians are not permanent members of a musical ensemble and often do not achieve fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders...

 with Mac Wiseman

Mac Wiseman

Malcolm B. Wiseman , better known as Mac Wiseman, is an American bluegrass singer, nicknamed The Voice with a Heart. The bearded singer is one of the cult figures of bluegrass....

 and Red Allen

Red Allen

Henry James "Red" Allen was a jazz trumpeter and vocalist whose style has been claimed to be the first to fully incorporate the innovations of Louis Armstrong.-Life and career:...

, among others.

Wise returned to Florida in 1984 and went into semi-retirement, though he continued to tour and record occasionally, such as with the Bass Mountain Boys in 1992.

He joined producers Randall Franks

Randall Franks

Randall Franks is an award-winning bluegrass singer and musician who plays fiddle, mandolin, guitar and mountain dulcimer. He was recognized by the International Bluegrass Music Museum in 2010 as a Bluegrass Legend; inducted into the Atlanta Country Music Hall of Fame in 2004; and was designated...

 and Alan Autry

Alan Autry

Carlos Alan Autry is an American actor, politician, and former National Football League football player. He is best known for his role as Captain Bubba Skinner on the television series In the Heat of the Night; he also has been in numerous movies and other television shows...

 for the In the Heat of the Night (TV Series)

In the Heat of the Night (TV series)

In the Heat of the Night is a television series based on the motion picture and novel of the same name. It was broadcast on NBC from 1988 until 1992, and then on CBS until 1995...

 cast CD “Christmas Time’s A Comin’” performing "Christmas Time's A Comin'" with the cast on the CD released on Sonlite and MGM/UA for one of the most popular Christmas releases of 1991 and 1992 with Southern retailers. Franks occasionally joined Wise performing twin fiddle with him on his shows.

Discography

• Chubby Wise and the Rainbow Ranch Boys (Starday Records, 1961)
• The Tennessee Fiddler (Starday, 1961)
• Chubby Plays Bluegrass (Stoneway Records, 1970)
• Chubby Plays Bob Wills (Stoneway, 1970)
• Grassy Fiddle (Stoneway, 1975)
• Chubby Plays Hank Williams (Stoneway, 1977)
• Chubby Wise in Nashville (Pinecastle Records, 1994)
• An American Original (Pinecastle, 1995)