Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.
Concept
Paul Nelson (critic)
Summary
Paul Nelson (January 21, 1936 — circa July 5, 2006) was an A&R executive, magazine editor, and music critic best known for writing for Sing Out!, The Village Voice and Rolling Stone.
Born in Warren, Minnesota, Nelson attended St. Olaf College before graduating from University of Minnesota, where he became acquainted with Bob Dylan and co-founded a seminal folk revival magazine, The Little Sandy Review. As a critic, he defended Dylan when he "went electric" at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 and was instrumental in supporting the careers of Dylan, Clint Eastwood, Leonard Cohen, Elliott Murphy, Willie Nelson, Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Neil Young, The Ramones, The Sex Pistols and Warren Zevon.
While employed by the A&R department of Mercury Records from 1970 to 1975, Nelson briefly served as David Bowie's publicist and championed such disparate artists as Rod Stewart, Doug Sahm, New York Dolls, Blue Ash, and Reddy Teddy. He also compiled The Velvet Underground's archival 1969: The Velvet Underground Live and made unsuccessful bids on behalf of the label for Springsteen, The Modern Lovers and Richard and Linda Thompson.
As the record reviews editor of Rolling Stone from 1978 to 1983, Nelson researched long features about Eastwood, Zevon and Ross Macdonald (only an expurgated version of the Zevon piece would see print) while mentoring a new generation of critics, including Kurt Loder, Charles M. Young and Mikal Gilmore. He frequently quarreled with publisher Jann Wenner over content (due to Nelson's backing, prominent laudatory reviews of The Dead Boys, Joy Division, and were published) and length issues, precipitating his eventual resignation.
Although Nelson found transitory employment as a copy editor at The Jewish Week, attempted to write two major pieces on Cohen and Lucinda Williams for LA Weekly in 1993, and continued to sporadically contribute reviews to Musician and People until 1996, he largely recused himself from professional writing following his resignation from Rolling Stone, devoting most of his literary energies to an unfinished screenplay partially set during World War II.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.