Scott Stanton keeps it all interesting for his own clan and himself by looking for tombstones. The world is his memorial park, and he has chosen to share years of painstaking work just seeking out and locating the burial plots of hundreds of musicians. Happily, he manages to keep from moralizing or sensationalizing; this is neither Hollywood Babylon nor Tales from the Crypt.

It is also a grim reminder, as Stanton says, that "the music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs."

At Green Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, he discovers the grave of Leonard Bernstein, who died aged 72 in New York 13 years ago of cardiac arrest brought on by mesothelioma. Maestro had announced plans to retire from public performances due to failing health and died five days later. Good timing.

Bernstein appears in the segment of the book titled "Legends," as do men like George Gershwin, Huddie Ledbetter (a.k.a. Leadbelly) and Bing Crosby. The crooner's name was based on his favorite childhood character, Bingo, in the comic strip Bingville Bugle. Fittingly, the champion golfer/crooner died in 1977 after playing 18 holes with two Spanish golf pros. He carded 85, announced that it was a great game and collapsed while bowing to the applause of several fans after making his last putt. Crosby is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, Calif., just right of Bela Lugosi and near Rita Hayworth and Sharon Tate, not to mention three other musicians, Lawrence Welk, Spike Jones and Philadelphia's Mario Lanza. Stanton points out that if you want to see the final resting places of Humphrey Bogart or Marilyn Monroe, it's a piece of cake. But if you want Miles Davis' grave -- well, that's another story. As he points out. "Most cemetery managers are not exactly all that warm and fuzzy when you want to run through their park for the musically inclined members of the six feet under club. ... They really don't want to turn their sacred acreage into some funky tourist attraction."

Another segment of The Tombstone Tourist is dubbed "Has Beens, Should-Have Beens, One Hit Wonders, and a few Really Great Artists." Among them is Dinah Shore, winner of the Peabody Award, eight Emmy Awards and a place in history as the first female to host a network TV series. She died nine years ago and is interred at Hillside Memorial Park in L.A. near the Jack Benny vault and that of Allan Sherman. Ms. Shore is interred in Isaiah-V-247, and the author notes that only 25 percent of the singer's cremated remains are located here; 25 percent went to her daughter and the remaining 50 percent went to her good friend, Murray Niedorf. By the way, she shares the wall with Max Factor, Hank Greenberg and Lorne Greene. A life-sized statue of her may be seen in Beverly Hills, her hometown for most of her career. Those singing sweethearts, Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, died within two years of each other. They starred in eight films and recorded dozens of hits, together and separately. Miss MacDonald passed away in a Houston, Texas hospital while awaiting heart surgery; Mr. Eddy was on stage at the Sans Souci Hotel in Palm Beach when he collapsed midsong and died. He is buried at Hollywood Forever in L.A. in the Garden of Legends. Miss MacDonald is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale on the top floor of the Freedom Mausoleum, alongside Nat King Cole, silent screen actress Clara Bow and George Burns and Gracie Allen.

It is considered bad manners to speak ill of the dead, and one must wonder why the author, in writing about Noel Coward, found it necessary to mention that the prolific and witty British playwright, performer and raconteur was wearing thin on the public after World War II and that his career never regained the momentum it had in the prewar era. Mr. Coward was buried on his beloved estate on the island of Jamaica overlooking Blue Harbour. The house is open to the public, complete with all of its original artwork and furniture, including Noel Coward's Steinway.

Halfway through the book, I desperately wished I had necromantic skills to bring back to life and personally witness and hear some of the book's performers. I would also want a tighter close-up of the rascals as well as more overrated musicians such as the Sex Pistols' Sid Vicious, named such for his unpredictable violent outbursts.

What has Stanton, who catalogued close to a thousand musicians, learned from all this? To name a few things: "that Louis Prima (not David Lee Roth) is just a gigolo; that Michael Jackson stole all of Jackie Wilson's moves; that a man named Willie Dixon wrote pretty much all of the first two Led Zeppelin albums; that Mama Cass Elliot's cause of death was not sandwich-related; that when Diana Ross dies, she'll be lucky if someone other than the funeral home rep shows up for her funeral; and that death was a good career move for Elvis." Stanton feels strongly, after walking with his family in more than 2,000 cemeteries past rows of the dearly departed, that life is too short to do something you really don't want to do. In the final analysis, this book is quite moving.

The Tombstone Tourist is published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.; visit www.simonsays.com.

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