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”.

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.