Guy on dole briefly popular with one of those employed by musician (8)
I believe the answer is:
mandolin
'one of those employed by musician' is the definition.
I can't tell whether this defines the answer.
'guy on dole briefly popular' is the wordplay.
'guy' becomes 'man' (I've seen this before).
'on' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'briefly' means to remove the last letter.
'popular' becomes 'in'.
'dole' with its final letter removed is 'dol'.
'man'+'dol'+'in'='MANDOLIN'
'with' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for mandolin that I've seen before include "Almond in the stringed instrument, oddly" , "Musical instrument like a small guitar" , "Lute-like instrument" , "vegetable slicer" , "It takes some pluck to use this" .)