Paul Nelson (1936-2006)

Former Rolling Stone contributor and record reviews editor Paul Nelson was found dead in his New York City apartment last week. He was sixty-nine years old. The Warren, Minnesota native was a member of an influential generation of reviewers that included Greil Marcus, Lester Bangs and Dave Marsh, and he also briefly worked in A&R in the early Seventies, signing the New York Dolls.

Nelson founded the first magazine of the American folk revival, Little Sandy Review, in the early Sixties. He knew Bob Dylan at the University of Minnesota and first heard his music while the legendary singer-songwriter was still performing under the name Bobby Zimmerman. He was first published in Rolling Stone in 1969 -- the story was about the formation of the Band, published that February -- and he continued to be a regular contributor for the next decade and a half, in the Seventies going on to edit the review section.

Greil Marcus says Nelson asked a lot of each record he played: "Would it raise the possibility that you could think differently, respond differently, feel differently about the dilemmas of love or money, success and failure? Was the singer telling you something that perhaps you didn't know, or was he or she flattering you that you already knew all you or anyone needed to know? He had a phrase in the late Seventies: 'the rock wars.' Music had barely begun to talk about loneliness, suicide, the toughness needed to say everything you had to say in the turn of a line or the way a melody broke. Paul's role? A scout, behind enemy lines, reporting back." Longterm contributor David Fricke says of Nelson, his first editor at the magazine, "He was the perfect definition of 'mentor' -- someone who recognized talent, gave it a chance and made vital helpful criticism in terms of language and perspective. I learned a lot from Paul not just about expressing one's passions and opinions, but how to formulate them and make them live on the page."

In addition to his work for the magazine -- including seminal writings on Seventies recordings by Dylan and Neil Young -- Nelson collaborated with Lester Bangs on a 1988 biography of Rod Stewart.

In the early Seventies, Nelson worked as an A&R man at Mercury Records, where in addition to signing the Dolls, he compiled the important, two-CD Velvet Underground anthology, Velvet Underground 1969 -- a collection of previously unreleased live tapes made by Robert Quine at the Matrix in San Francisco. Nelson was also an unofficial scout of exceptional talent: He was an early supporter in print of Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon, the singer-songwriter Elliott Murphy and the solo Dolls frontman David Johansen.

In the early Nineties, Nelson wrote for Musician magazine, contributing features on Freedy Johnston, Suzanne Vega and Chet Baker, and was a copy editor at Jewish Week. A film buff, he became friends with Martin Scorsese, and in recent years worked at an independent video store in New York and was completing a screenplay.

Below is a selection of Paul Nelson's contributions to Rolling Stone:

• " Warren Zevon: How He Saved Himself From a Coward's Death" (RS 339: March 19, 1981)

• Review: Jackson Browne, Running on Empty

• Review: Neil Young, Rust Never Sleeps

• Review: The Ramones, Ramones