Tom Wisner was born in 1930 in Washington, D.C.[1] He grew up in D.C. and in Prince George's County, spending time with family along the James River in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
[2][3] He graduated from Anacostia High School in 1950 and volunteered for the Korean War, fighting with the U.S. Air Force, at his father's urging.
[1][2] He later pursued some graduate studies in ecology at Cornell, but left before obtaining a doctorate, instead working as a naturalist in California.
[1][5] Wisner established himself as a folk singer beginning in the mid-1960s, writing and singing songs about the Chesapeake Bay.
[1] His albums about the bay included Chesapeake Born, Equilibrium, We've Got to Come Full Circle, and Made of Water.