Alec Wilder wrote songs and lyrics of unsurpassed beauty and originality, and his work won the respect and admiration of such important musical figures as Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Mitch Miller, Gunther Schuller, and many others. Yet Wilder seemed almost to court obscurity. Both in the music he composed and in the way he lived his life, Wilder valued the unique and eccentric over the established and easily acceptable. And though he authored the definitive American Popular Song--which critics praised as "singular" (Studs Terkel), "pioneering" (Whitney Balliett), "rewarding" (Milton Babbitt),...