ANDY PALEY,
1952-2024

Producer, songwriter and musician Andy Paley, who was best known as one of Brian Wilson’s favorite collaborators and a close associate of Seymour Stein as an artist and executive at Sire Records, has died following a brief battle with cancer. He was 72. He passed away in hospice care in Colchester, Vermont, with family members present.

Paley loomed large in behind-the-scenes studio activity for more than four decades, collaborating with a remarkably diverse array of recording talent. He worked primarily as a producer but also as a session player and composer. Among the many artists he worked with were The Ramones, Madonna, Jonathan Richman, Brenda Lee, Little Richard, Hank Ballard, Debbie Harry, NRBQ, John Wesley Harding, Elton John, The Mighty Lemon Drops, Mandy Barnett, Jerry Lee Lewis and k.d. lang.

He recently provided original music for the long-running SpongeBob SquarePants, teaming with Tom Kenny, who voices the title character. Paley had been musical director for Tom Kenny & the Hi-Seas, the 16-piece rock and soul band that he and Kenny assembled.

Paley was an Emmy winner and produced Brian Wilson’s track on the Grammy-winning album Folkways: A Vision Shared–A Tribute to Woody Guthrie & Leadbelly.

Growing up in the Albany area of Upstate New York, Paley became fascinated by rock & roll and was writing and playing music even before his teen years. He was a drummer for local bands, then moved to Boston in the early '70s, where he formed Catfish Black. Soon renamed The Sidewinders, the band included Billy Squier and future members of The Modern Lovers, including Jerry Harrison, who would subsequently join Talking Heads. After relocating to New York, they were signed to RCA Records, with Lenny Kaye producing their lone LP. After The Sidewinders broke up, Paley played on sessions and performance dates with Elliott Murphy, Patti Smith and Jonathan Richman, whose later recordings Paley produced.

Andy and his younger brother Jonathan formed The Paley Brothers, part of the mid-'70s power-pop movement. They recorded a Sire single produced by Jimmy Iovine before the label released the group’s full-length album in 1978. They joined forces with The Ramones for a cover version of Ritchie Valens’ “Come On Let’s Go” that was featured in the film Rock ’N’ Roll High School and recorded with Phil Spector.

At the behest of Stein, Paley became a staff producer at Sire, where he produced and co-wrote songs for Brian Wilson’s self-titled comeback album in 1988. Wilson hailed him as “the most frighteningly talented person that I've met and the greatest musical genius I’ve come across in many years, maybe my whole life.”

He produced the Dick Tracy soundtrack album and wrote most its songs, later producing the soundtracks to A Walk on the Moon, SHAG, Wild Orchid, A Rage in Harlem, Drop Dead Gorgeous and writing original music for Traveller, World’s Greatest Dad and the musical score to Showtime’s The L Word. Apart from his work on SpongeBob SquarePants, Paley had been active in numerous animation projects, including The Ren & Stimpy Show, Digimon and Camp Lazlo. At the time of his death, he was involved in production on two albums by voice actor Grey De Lisle.

In an L.A. Times interview published in 1990 upon the release of the Dick Tracy soundtrack, Paley marveled, “I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would work with Brian Wilson and Darlene Love, or that Jerry Lee Lewis would one day record a song I’d written with him in mind. These are people I listened to when I was a little kid who meant more to me than anything. I dropped out of high school when I was 15 years old, after the 11th grade. I never got a diploma and maybe I didn’t pay attention in some of the classes, but I definitely paid attention to Darlene Love, and I paid attention to Brian Wilson. That’s what I really cared about. It’s amazing to me to end up later in life working with these people.”

Andy (left) and Jonathan with Darlene Love

Paley is survived by wife Heather Crist Paley, whom he married in 2010, and twin sons Jackson and Charlie, who were born in 2012. He also leaves sisters Sarah, Brewster and Debby.