Meet Us
The Highlights have been performing in the Madison area for over 2 decades. Their energetic performances include 50’s and 60’s, country, Latin, blues, rock, standards and much more.
Over the years, the Highlights have received top honors in the Madison area Battle of the Bands and have written, produced and recorded their own tunes here and in Nashville. They have been featured at the Art Fair on the Square and the Taste of Madison. But what they love best – is playing music and entertaining and it shows every time they perform!
While all hail from Wisconsin, they bring very diverse musical backgrounds to form a fun time for dancing or listening. The magic of the Highlights is that all of the players can play and enjoy all sorts of music – so their rhythm and blues sounds like rhythm and blues, their country sounds like country and their 50’s sounds like 50’s.
Most important, the Highlights are usually game to try anything once to ensure that the crowd has a great time! Variety music, dancing and great fun…that’s the Highlights!
Ken Heim plays electric bass with the Highlights and performs lead and background vocals. Ken got his start in professional music at age sixteen at an impromptu performance with his first band, The Natives, for an audience of 200 screaming high school girls. Enough said….Ken was hooked on music!
He played rhythm guitar and electric bass and sang with The Natives, a band that rode the wave of the British invasion of the 60’s by specializing in playing the music of The Beatles. Ken joined The Bowery Boys (later known as Clicker) the day after the Natives played their last gig. After playing keyboards, guitar, and singing with the Bowery Boys, he decided to pursue his first choice of instruments, the bass.
After a stint as bass player with the Milwaukee-based rock band Eden Stone, Ken joined forces with Madison’s Funky Drummer, Clyde Stubblefield, in the R&B group called Blume’. After Blume’ came his “Blues Period,” when he performed with Paul Black, Mel Ford, Will “Smokey” Log, and John Chimes.
In 1986, Ken joined the Highlights, married the “girl singer” and has been swinging and rocking with them ever since. Ken has also ventured into musical theater and performed in “Seussical The Musical” with Middleton Players Theater in 2004.
Marcy Heim was one of those kids that walked around singing…anywhere, anytime. Songs are powerful and Marcy wants her music to bring a smile to your face and pull you out on the dance floor! She’s been in sing/dance groups her whole life. While in college at the UW-Madison, she answered an ad in the Madison newspaper for a female vocalist and joined the local local rock band, Nite Fire. From there she hooked up with Changes Band, a local country variety band until forming The Highlights in 1985.
Her original song, “Maybe Together Was Better” earned honorable mention in the Nashville Music City Song Festival. Most fun was forming the trio, “Special Delivery” with combined the musical talents of three local bands and performed at area conventions and festivals.
Marcy got a strong dose of rhythm and blues as singer with Clyde Stubblefield and the Motown Players and with Clyde as a member of the Highlights for more than seven years. In recent years, Marcy has ventured into musical theater performing a lead role as the Sour Kangaroo in “Seussical the Musical” and “Mrs. Fezziwig” in CTM’s Christmas Carol. But the “highlight” for Marcy was performing with the UW Varsity Band under the direction of Mike Leckrone in the Kohl Center. (see the video on this site). Marcy is happiest telling corny jokes and partying with the crowd!
Rich Larson is the drummer with the Highlights. Rich grew up in rural southwest Wisconsin. As a young boy he was inspired to play the drum set from listening to A.M. radio stations that played pop and R&B records. Originally self-taught, he’s gone on to study music at Boston’s Berklee College and with internationally recognized drum set instructors.
His playing career includes performing and recording with the Highlights, the Madisalsa Latin jazz band, Robert J, Chris Plata & Extra Hot, and various bands in the Madison area. He’s even played drums in a hockey cult movie called Slapshot that starred Paul Newman. What audiences like best, of course, is the steady, clear beat Rich lays down for the dancers.
Tom Waselchuk started on his path as a professional musician in 1981. He joined the Highlights in 1992 as guitarist, singer and songwriter, and his work with the band is the longest continuing musical partnership in a highly diverse career. Tom’s earliest bands were acoustic, folk oriented groups: The Stone Oak Bluegrass Band, Katzenjammers (Irish/Celtic), and the Rubato Brothers (swing).
An interest in jazz brought him to The Harris Lemberg Trio and later to founding the Full Count Jazz Band, a sextet that featured some Madison jazz luminaries including Peter Deakman, Stan Godfriaux, Les Thimmig, and Jackie Allen.
Throughout the years Tom has filled out his time with teaching, free lance work with many duets, trios, and larger bands of all styles, and collaborations with area theatre companies, performing with the Madison Repertory Theatre, the Fireside Theatre in Fort Atkinson, and writing musical scores for two productions by Tap-It Dance and Theatrical Company.
Tom balances work in the Highlights with two other groups: his own Country and Western Swing band, The Dang-Its, and the gypsy swing quartet Harmonious Wail.
