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Though he's hardly a cult persona, Jerry Harrison has failed to be recognized as a crucial figure in the history of punk rock, a portion of the music which influenced it, and the styles which had grown out of punk more than 15 years later. Best known as the keyboard player and occasional guitarist of Talking Heads during the 1980s, Harrison had begun his career ten years before, playing with Jonathan Richman's seminal Modern Lovers during the early '70s. He recorded several solo albums while on occasional hiatus from Talking Heads in the '80s, but when the band disintegrated in the late '80s, Harrison resumed his busy production schedule, working with some hot alternative acts. Born in 1949 in Milwaukee, Jerry Harrison began playing with bands while in high school, and continued his work after graduation, while he studied at Harvard during the late '60s. By the beginning of the decade, Harrison and bandmate Ernie Brooks were encouraged to form a band by local Boston friend Jonathan Ri...