Andy Paley, Composer and Producer Who Collaborated With Brian Wilson, Dies

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Andy Paley (r.) and Brian Wilson

Andy Paley, a composer, producer and musician who has been described by Brian Wilson 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,” died today (November 20, 2024), following a brief battle with cancer. His death at age 72 in hospice care in Colchester, Vt., was announced by veteran music industry publicist Bob Merlis. Several hours earlier, his wife, Heather Crist Paley, had posted on Facebook, “All of you who are reporting news of [Andy’s] death are causing distress to us, his family, and are lying. Unless it comes from me or Bob Merlis, it’s fake news.”

Paley loomed large in behind-the-scenes studio work for more than four decades, collaborating with a remarkably diverse array of recording talent. He worked primarily as a music producer, but also as a session player and composer. Among the many artists’ projects in which Paley took part were recordings by Ramones, Madonna, Jonathan Richman, Hank Ballard, Deborah Harry, NRBQ, Julia Sweeney, John Wesley Harding, Elton John, Brenda Lee, Ofra Haza, Little Richard, the Mighty Lemon Drops, Mandy Barnett, Jerry Lee Lewis, k.d. lang and Brian Wilson.

Paley also provided original music for the long running Nickelodeon animated series SpongeBob SquarePants, working with Tom Kenny, who voices the title character. He was an Emmy winner and produced Wilson’s track on the Grammy-winning album Folkways: A Vision Shared – A Tribute to Woody Guthrie & Leadbelly. Paley had been musical director for Tom Kenny & the Hi-Seas, the 16-piece rock and soul band that he and Kenny assembled, which has become a live performance attraction.

Andy Paley with Tom Kenny, the voice of SpongeBob Square Pants

As a child growing up in the Albany area of upstate New York, Paley became fascinated with rock ‘n’ roll, listening to disc jockey Boom Boom Brannigan on WPTR, and was writing and playing music even before his teen years. At age seven, he wrote “The Porcupine Song” that was recorded by children’s music performer Tom (“On Top of Spaghetti”) Glazer. He was a drummer for local bands before moving to Boston in the early ‘70s, where he formed Catfish Black. Soon renamed the Sidewinders, the band included future members of the Modern Lovers, including Jerry Harrison, who would go on to become a member of Talking Heads. They were joined by Billy Squier and relocated to New York, where they played Max’s Kansas City and signed to RCA Records with Lenny Kaye producing. After the Sidewinders broke up, Paley played on sessions and performance dates with Elliott Murphy, Patti Smith and Jonathan Richman, for whose later recordings Paley would serve as producer.

With his younger brother Jonathan, he formed the Paley Brothers, who were the embodiment of the mid-‘70s power pop movement, appealing to both punk rock and bubblegum fans alike. They appeared on live dates with artists as diverse as Patti Smith and Shaun Cassidy, and recorded a Sire single produced by Jimmy Iovine before the label released the brothers’ full-length album in 1978.

Veteran music industry executive Marc Nathan was in charge of pop radio promotion for the label at the time. He recalled, “I had to figure out a way to get (radio) to receive it. The first single was chosen, ‘You’re The Best,’ and I tasked the boys to do personalized liners for a number of radio stations that I thought might be early on the track. It was in a short few days that I received dozens of five-inch reel-to-reel tapes with all the necessary liners with A & J singing the call letters, or the jock, or the program director, or the music director… You’re the best, better than all the rest.

“We sent out the reels and the 45 and the race was on,” he added. “Unfortunately, we never got out of the starting gate and the single received little to no airplay. We put out a second single and received much the same reaction. It was a shame, because it was a damn good album and years later became one of those cult classics that finally got reissued on compact disc with bonus tracks.

“I had many failed records in my career as a promotion man, but I was extremely disappointed that I couldn’t get that one off the ground because Andy and Jonathan were wonderful people, and though I lost track of Jonathan over the years, Andy and I stayed close for well over four decades.”

The brothers joined forces with 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 legendary Gold Star Studios. “Baby, Let’s Stick Together,” their final studio recording, was reportedly the last session ever to take place at Gold Star before it shuttered.

At the behest of Seymour Stein, Paley became a staff producer at Sire Records, where he produced Brian Wilson’s much lauded self-titled comeback album in 1988. He co-wrote several of the album’s songs with Wilson as well as a handful that have not been officially released. He produced the Dick Tracy soundtrack album and wrote most of the album’s songs that featured vocal performances by k.d. lang, Take 6, Jerry Lee Lewis, Brenda Lee, Tommy Page, August Darnell, Patti Austin, Erasure, Ice-T, LaVern Baker, Al Jarreau and Darlene Love. He continued working in the film music field, producing soundtracks for A Walk on the Moon, Wild Orchid, A Rage In Harlem and Drop Dead Gorgeous.

In a Los Angeles Times interview published in 1990, 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.”