Paul Zollo – författare

In these fifty-two interviews, the greatest songwriters of our time go straight to the source of the magic of songwriting by offering their thoughts, feelings, and opinions on their art. Representing almost every genre of popular music, from folk to Tin Pan Alley to jazz, from blues to pop rock, these are the figures who have shaped American music as we know it. Here they share their secrets and personal methods for converting inspiration into song: Robbie Robertson of the Band an Tom Petty talk about working with Bob Dylan; Dylan himself, in his only in-depth interview in more than ten years, says that the world doesn't need any new songs; R.E.M. name their favorite R.E.M. songs; Madonna describes collaborating with Prince; Sammy Cahn talks about writing standards for Sinatra; Pete Seeger recounts hitting the road with Woody Guthrie; Frank Zappa admits to loving "Louie Louie"; Todd Rundgren explains how he dreams his songs; and, in the book's most extensive interview, Paul Simon delves into his opus from "The Sound of Silence" to "Graceland." And almost all of them express delight at being able to talk about the mechanics of music itself, something that they have rarely been asked to discuss. Here expanded with new interviews with Burt Bacharach, Laura Nyro, Yoko Ono, Leonard Cohen, Graham Nash, Jackson Browne, Richard Thompson, and many others, Songwriters on Songwriting is a rare volume: one of the best books on the craft of musicmaking, an informative source for musicians and songwriters, and an invaluable historical record of the popular music of this century.

Twenty-five years after publishing his original ground-breaking collection of insight and advice from the greatest songwriters to ever grace the airwaves, Paul Zollo releases the much-anticipated follow-up volume. The sequel to the bestselling Songwriters on Songwriting features new, revealing interviews with Leiber & Stoller, James Taylor, Aimee Mann, Stephen Stills, Paul Simon, Elvis Costello, Rickie Lee Jones, Randy Newman, Brian Wilson, and dozens of other music legends. Once again crossing genres to cover the breadth of popular music over the past decade and a half, Songwriters on Songwriting, Volume 2 is a rare look inside the music industry an invaluable resource to musicians, songwriters, and students and an entertaining and important record of a quarter-century of music.

In Hollywood Remembered, a wide array of Tinseltown veterans share their stories of life in the city of dreams from the days of silent pictures to the present. The 35 voices, many of whom have come to know Hollywood inside-out, range from film producers and movie stars to restauranteurs and preservationists. Actress Evelyn Keyes recalls how, fresh from Georgia, she met Cecil B. DeMille and was soon acting in Gone With The Wind; Blacklisted writer Walter Bernstein tells how he transformed his McCarthy era-experiences into drama with The Front; Steve Allen speaks out on how Hollywood has changed since he first came there in the 1920s; and Jonathan Winters relates how he left a mental institution to come work with Stanley Kramer in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Composers, cinematographers, bartenders, bit-players, publicists, and others add to the portrait of a place where, in days gone by, the idols of a nation walked down the famous boulevards daily, and nearly everybody-in and out of the movie business-knew one another.

In Hollywood Remembered, a wide array of Tinseltown veterans share their stories of life in the city of dreams from the days of silent pictures to the present. The 35 voices, many of whom have come to know Hollywood inside-out, range from film producers and movie stars to restaurateurs and preservationists. Actress Evelyn Keyes recalls how, fresh from Georgia, she met Cecil B. DeMille and was soon acting in Gone With the Wind; Blacklisted writer Walter Bernstein tells how he transformed his McCarthy era-experiences into drama with The Front; Steve Allen speaks out on how Hollywood has changed since he first came there in the 1920s; and Jonathan Winters relates how he left a mental institution to come work with Stanley Kramer in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.