Blue Railroad Magazine

Who is Paul Zollo? A few years ago I went to Toronto to play a show with Adam Greenberg's band "The Greenbergs". Adam, Brian, Ken, and I drove out there together for the little one-show tour. While in the cold, cold city, Ken bruoght us around to all the cool record shops. That's what happens on the road with Ken. He brings you to the cool record shops or the great restaurants. Why? Because he's been everywhere. So, in one of these stores I came across a book called "Songwriters on Songwriting"...hmmm now I'm starting to think maybe this all happened in Philadelphia. You know what? It doesn't matter. What matters is that I was in unfamiliar surroundings and I was thumbing through this book and I immediately decided that I must have it. The book was written by Paul Zollo.

So, I got the book. It was actually a Christmas present from my mom, and over the years, I would read a chapter here and there. Each chapter had an introduction and an interview with a great songwriter, folks like Paul Simon, Randy Newman, Bob Dylan, Suzanne Vega, David Burne etc. The great thing about the book is that the interviews really are about songwriting. They discuss methods, techniques, particular lines or chord changes, and memories of songs. Really nice solid well-thought out stuff.

The book has lived for years now on my night stand. A couple months ago, I went into town to get some dinner on my own. It's a sin to eat alone without a book, so I grabbed Singers on Songwriting. To my surprise, I discovered that I had never read the chapter on Suzanne Vega before. Suzanne is one of my favorites and she has been a huge influence ever since my brother, Norbert, played "Small Blue Thing" for me on his famous stereo, about eight times in a row. So, there I was, reading this article on Suzanne Vega, the aroma of Chicken Parmisan wafting up from beneath the book, and I thought to myself, "I'm going to write this Paul Zollo a letter and thank him for making this book."

So, When I got home, I found his email address and I really did write him. Imagine that, me following up on an idea that I had.

A few days letter, I got a very nice response from Mr. Zollo. That correspondence resulted in me sending him a copy of "Looks Like I'm Tall". That was pretty much the end of the story until I got an email yesterday announcing the first issue of Blue Railroad Magazine.



The simple description on the home page says this: "Bluerailroad is a new online music magazine that features in-depth interviews, articles and reviews by and about musicians from all genres and generations." Sounds pretty good right? In this issue there is a new interview with Leiber And Stoller and an older interview with Dylan. There are also columns by people like Peter Case and John Doe. It's a free online magazine, so why not stop over and give it a look.

It's nice to find a music magazine that's actually about music rather than just fashions and trends and what have you. Yee.

Links:
The New Free Online: Blue Radio Magazine
The Must-Have Book: Songwriters on Songwriting