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Paul Zollo is a singer, songwriter, author, journalist and photographer.

Born in Chicago, he is the author of several books, including The Beginning Songwriter’s Answer Book, Songwriters On Songwriting, Songwriters On Songwriting (Expanded Edition), Hollywood Remembered (An Oral History of Its Golden Age), Conversations with Tom Petty, Sunset and Cahuenga (A Novel) and The Schirmer’s Complete Rhyming Dictionary. Songwriters On Songwriting has been expanded three times and features in-depth interviews with many of the world’s greatest songwriters, including Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Randy Newman, Laura Nyro, Pete Seeger, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young and Frank Zappa. It has been called “the ultimate book about songwriting” and "the songwriter's bible," and is used as a textbook in songwriting courses in many universities, including USC, UCLA, and the Berklee School of Music.

Zollo is an accomplished songwriter and singer. He was the leader of the Hollywood band The Ghosters, who were named “The Best Unsigned Band in Los Angeles” in 1993 by the Los Angeles Free Press, and released one self-titled album, featuring his songs.

In 2000, he embarked on a solo career and released his first solo CD Orange Avenue, which features a duet with Art Garfunkel on the song "Being In This World". Zollo has also collaborated with many songwriters, including Darryl Purpose, with whom he wrote the Chavez Ravine song “Crooked Line”, the title song of one of Purpose’s albums. They’ve also written many other songs together, such as “Baltimore”, about the mysterious death of Edgar Allan Poe, “Koreatown”, “The Ghost of Crazy Horse” and “California [Rutherford Hayes In The Morning]”. Zollo also collaborated with Steve Allen on the song “Blue Stars”, with Severin Browne on a song about L.A.’s beloved billboard queen, “Angelyne”, with James Coberly Smith on a song about Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley called “Muddy and Bo” and most recently with piano-man superstar Bob Malone on “Flying Machine”. Malone also cut Zollo’s song “Halloween”, which has been released as a special holiday record. In 2007 Zollo was working on his next solo album, and has been performing around the world with The Zollo Group, featuring Billy Salisbury, Aaron Wolfson and Kirke Jan.

Zollo was the editor of SongTalk magazine for many years, and went on to become Managing Editor of Performing Songwriter magazine and then Senior Editor of American Songwriter magazine. He’s also contributed to many magazines, including Variety, Billboard, Rolling Stone, Musician, Oxford Press, Playback, Gorgeous, Boulevard, Music Connection, Campus Circle and others.

He is presently the senior editor of American Songwriter magazine headquartered in Nashville, though Zollo lives and works in Los Angeles.

He is also the co-founder, editor and chief photographer for Bluerailroad, an online magazine of the arts (www.bluerailroad.com). Bluerailroad features Zollo's interviews in their pure, unexpurgated form, as well as galleries of his photographs. It also features a poetry section edited by John Doe, short fiction by Robert Morgan Fisher, and shifting galleries of photography, poetry, essays on music and art, and much more.

Zollo is also a celebrated photographer — mostly known for his portraits — and has had his work displayed at galleries in Los Angeles, Costa Mesa and New York City, including Cannibal Flower, the Infusion Gallery, Soho Dream, Nocturne, Valjenna, Memphis Café and Joe’s Diner. He’s contributed frequent photo essays to Campus Circle magazine as well as portraits in American Songwriter. He’s photographed many notable personalities, including Ringo Starr, Graham Nash, Brian Wilson, Leiber & Stoller, Al Pacino, Jon Bon Jovi, Randy Newman, Stephen Stills, Larry Flynt, David Crosby, Van Dyke Parks, Taylor Swift, Alice Cooper, Stephen Colbert, James Taylor, Billy Beck, Paris Hilton, Rickie Lee Jones, Michelle Phillips, Micky Dolenz, Claudia Rose, Aimee Mann, John Doe, Peter Case and others. He’s presently at work on a book of portraits entitled Angeleno.

His father Burt Zollo is also a writer, the author of three books and many essays and articles for magazines. A colleague of Hugh Hefner at Esquire magazine, he contributed to the first issues of Playboy, including the famous inaugural Marilyn Monroe issue.

Presently he lives in Hollywood with his wife Leslie and his son, Joshua Diller Zollo.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Paul Zollo", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0