Musicians

The new book "Famous Wisconsin Musicians" is consistently upbeat and historically informative. Madison music journalist and disc jockey Susan Masino impressively researches and documents the career stories of 32 state musicians, singers and groups, and provides more than 100 thumbnail sketches of other notable Badger music-makers. The profiles include Liberace, Steve Miller, Richard Davis, Ben Sidran, Al Jarreau, Eric Benet, Woody Herman, Hildegarde, Adrian Belew, Jerry Harrison of the Talking Heads, Butch Vig of Garbage and Bobby Hatfield of the Righteous Brothers.Masino gets the good story down better in her piece on legendary guitarist and instrument innovator Les Paul. She establishes a homespun tone with the tale of this gifted musical tinkerer who created one of the most popular electric guitars in history and devised the first electric amplified guitar. With a full index, the book is an interesting read and valuable reference for anyone who cares about the local and national impact of our native musicians. Kevin Lynch is an arts writer for The Capital Times.