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Andy Paley Dies: ‘SpongeBob SquarePants’ Composer, Prolific Producer Of Records, Film & TV Music Was 72

Paley was a songwriter, producer and musician who collaborated with Brian Wilson, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Ramones and Madonna. He died Wednesday.

Andy Paley, a prolific songwriter, producer and musician who collaborated with such artists as Brian Wilson, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Ramones, Madonna, Elton John, Patti Smith and Deborah Harry, and who composed the scores for SpongeBob SquarePants and other TV shows, died Wednesday, November 20, of cancer. Though the brothers had built a fan base in New York’s famed underground club CBGB, sometimes opening for the Patti Smith Group, the duo failed to achieve commercial success and broke up in 1979. With his shift toward producing, Paley would work on albums in the ’70s and ’80s by Wilson, Jonathan Richman, NRBQ, John Wesley Harding, the Greenberry Woods and Jerry Lee Lewis.

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