Producer/Musician Andy Paley Passes at 72

Colchester, VT (November 21, 2024)—Producer/engineer Andy Paley, who produced a broad range of artists, from legends like Brian Wilson to cult acts such as The Greenberry Woods, died. Following a brief battle with cancer, he passed in hospice care with family members present on Wednesday, November 20, 2024. He was 72.

Over the course of a 50-plus year career, Paley worked primarily as a 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 others.

Perhaps the highlight of his production career, however, was producing Brian Wilson’s self-titled 1988 comeback album, for which he co-wrote several of the album’s songs with Wilson as well as a handful that have not been officially released. The experience led to Wilson describing Paley 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.”

As a child growing up in the Albany area of upstate New York, 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 bubble gum 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 group’s full-length album in 1978. They 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 Wilson’s album, and followed that up with a move into soundtracks, producing the Dick Tracy soundtrack album for which he 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, LaVerne Baker, Al Jarreau and Darlene Love.

Paley continued working in the film music field, producing soundtracks for A Walk on the Moon, SHAG, Wild Orchid, A Rage In Harlem, Drop Dead Gorgeous and writing original music for Traveler, World’s Greatest Dad and the musical score for Showtime’s The L Word.

He most recently provided original music for the long-running SpongeBob SquarePants animated series, working with Tom Kenny, who voices the title character. He 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. Paley was also the musical director for Tom Kenny & The Hi-Seas, a 16-piece rock and soul band that he and Kenny assembled for live performances.

Apart from his work on SpongeBob SquarePants, Paley was involved in numerous animation projects, including The Ren & Stimpy Show, Digimon and Camp Lazlo. Heading the Andy Paley Orchestra, he worked on live comedy projects with Dana Gould, Jim Turner, Dave “Gruber” Allen, and David Koechner. Beyond that, he produced and co-wrote the songs for Joueuse, a tribute to 1960s French Yé-Yé music with JPL scientist-turned-chanteuse Victoria Meyer. At the time of his passing, he was involved in production on two albums by voice actor Grey De Lisle.

In an LA 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 Paley is survived by his wife Heather Crist Paley, whom he married in 2010, and Jackson and Charlie—their twin sons who were born in 2012. He also leaves three sisters, Sarah, Brewster and Debby and brother Jonathan Paley.