Josh Clayton-Felt

Josh Clayton-Felt (May 18, 1967 – January 19, 2000) was an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He co-founded the alternative rock band School of Fish and later embarked on a solo career.

Josh Clayton-Felt
Birth nameJosh Clayton
Born(1967-05-18)May 18, 1967
DiedJanuary 19, 2000(2000-01-19) (aged 32)
Los Angeles, California[1]
GenresAlternative rock
Occupation(s)Musician, producer, songwriter
InstrumentsVocals, Guitar, Bass, Drums, Keyboard
Years active1989–2000
LabelsCapitol, A&M, Dreamworks, Talking Cloud
Associated actsSchool of Fish
Websitewww.joshclayton.com

Biography

Early years

Clayton-Felt was one of two children along with his sister Laura born to Marilyn and John Clayton.[2] His parents later divorced and his mother would eventually remarry Henry Felt, a folk musician who exposed Clayton-Felt to the works of Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie, and Pete Seeger.[2] He grew up outside of Boston, Massachusetts, and attended high school at the Cambridge School of Weston. He later enrolled at Brown University.

School of Fish

Clayton-Felt moved to Los Angeles after leaving Brown to form The Boon with fellow CSW-alumnus Andras Jones. During this time he worked for acclaimed comedy director Robert B. Weide in 1987 as an informal office assistant during the production of Swear to Tell the Truth. He also worked at the Tower Records store on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood.

Josh Clayton-Felt and Michael Ward founded the band School of Fish that went on to musical success in America in the late 1980s through the mid-1990s.

Solo career

After the breakup of School of Fish, Clayton-Felt released an album independently in 1994, and landed a deal with A&M Records in 1996. His album, Inarticulate Nature Boy, was released in February 1996.[3] It scored airplay on college radio, with the track "Window" reaching #49 on Radio & Records' Alternative chart, and led to tours with Tori Amos and Del Amitri.[4] The record did not sell well and Clayton-Felt was dropped; he had been writing a follow-up record, to be titled Center of Six, which he continued to work on in 1998 and 1999 with session drummer Steve Scully.

In December 1999, while still writing for the album, Clayton-Felt was diagnosed with choriocarcinoma,[2] a rare form of a particularly aggressive testicular cancer[5] with the worst prognosis of all germ-cell cancers.[6] He died a month later at the age of 32.[2] Robert B. Weide delivered the eulogy at Clayton-Felt's funeral, in early 2000.[2]

Aftermath

In 2002, Dreamworks Records released a collection of songs from the unfinished Center of Six sessions[3] under the name Spirit Touches Ground.[7] Talking Cloud Records released an album of additional unreleased material under the Center of Six name (including the title track) in 2003.[8]

Discography
Studio albums
Year Album details
1996 Inarticulate Nature Boy
1999 Beautiful Nowhere
  • Released: October 18, 1999
  • Label: Talking Cloud Records
2002 Spirit Touches Ground
  • Released: February 12, 2002
  • Label: Dreamworks Records
2003 Center of Six
(Josh Clayton-Felt & Friends)
  • Released: May 6, 2003
  • Label: Talking Cloud Records
Live Albums
Year Album details
1997 ...Felt Like Making a Live Record
  • Released: 1997
  • Label: Self-released
EPs
Year Album details
2013 The Spirit Shines Through
(Various Artists)
  • Released: 2013
  • Label: Talking Cloud Records
Promotional Singles
Year Single Album
1995 "Soon Enough" Inarticulate Nature Boy
"Window"
2002 "Building Atlantis" Spirit Touches Ground

With School of Fish
Year Album details
1991 School of Fish
  • Released: April 1, 1991
  • Label: Capitol
1993 Human Cannonball

With The Boon
Year Album details
1988 The Boon[9]
  • Released: May 5, 1988
  • Label: Self-released

As composer or session musician
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
Year Subject Collaborator Comment
1996 "Barely Dressed" / "Starfish Girl" Twig drums
1997 11 Transistor Lazlo Bane co-writer of the song "Prada Wallet"
1998 Spirit Jewel electric guitar
2000 Haunted Poe co-writer of the song "5&½ Minute Hallway"
gollark: I mean, I don't go around thinking about lizard reproduction very often.
gollark: A sterile lizard, probably.
gollark: Although in our English lessons I generally ended up having time to reread the book a fwe times while we were doing it. So boring.
gollark: I never actually did do that. It probably would have saved time, in retrospect.
gollark: Unrelatedly, writing long things is hard and school has prepared me terribly for this.

References
  1. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/31/arts/josh-clayton-felt-32-guitarist-and-rock-singer-and-songwriter.html
  2. Strauss, Neil (January 31, 2000). "Josh Clayton-Felt, 32, Guitarist And Rock Singer and Songwriter". The New York Times. Retrieved October 31, 2012.
  3. Flick, Larry (March 9, 2002). "Sibling Carries On Clayton-Felt Legacy". Billboard. p. 14. Retrieved October 31, 2012.
  4. Seigal, Buddy (July 11, 1996). "Articulate in His Own Vernacular". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 31, 2012.
  5. Cuomo, Chris (February 12, 2002). "Musician Josh Clayton-Felt's Last Album". ABC News. Retrieved July 12, 2013.
  6. Verville, Kathleen M. (2009). Testicular Cancer. Infobase Publishing. p. 76. ISBN 9781604131666.
  7. Schabe, Patrick (April 22, 2002). "Josh Clayton-Felt: Spirit Touches Ground". PopMatters. Retrieved July 6, 2013.
  8. Schabe, Patrick (July 8, 2003). "Josh Clayton-Felt and Friends: Center of Six". PopMatters. Retrieved July 12, 2013.
  9. "The Boon". bandcamp.com. Retrieved November 8, 2017.
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