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JOSH CLAYTON-FELT'S MUSIC FLOWS ON For Immediate Release: Los Angeles—Rock musician Josh Clayton-Felt succumbed to cancer at age 32 in January of 2000, but his musical energy keeps flowing -- in the wealth and variety of songs unreleased at the time of his death, and in the songs he inspires in others. A new Clayton-Felt CD, CENTER OF SIX, includes both -- songs by Josh as well as songs written for him by his friends. Clayton-Felt first captured attention with “Three Strange Days,” by School of Fish, the band he co-founded with Michael Ward (formerly of The Wallflowers and now a solo artist) and fronted for until he went solo with INARTICULATE NATURE BOY in 1995. Josh supported his solo career by opening for Tori Amos on her 1996 U.S. tour and later self-released JOSH CLAYTON FELT LIKE MAKING A LIVE RECORD drawn from his tour with Amos, and BEAUTIFUL NOWHERE based on early demo recordings. The first music released after Josh's passing was the album SPIRIT TOUCHES GROUND, released by DreamWorks records in 2002. Kevin Bronson of the L.A. Times wrote “SPIRIT TOUCHES GROUND brims with grand metaphor and unrelenting hope…a singer-songwriter in full bloom” and Entertainment Weekly described it as "so laden with talent and promise it's almost painful…." We can't know how Josh's talent would have matured, and we can't have him with us, but thanks to the dedication of friends, fans, and family, we can hear more of the music he did write and record. In a review in the New York Times, Neil Strauss wrote that SPIRIT TOUCHES GROUND was “a strong, gentle, thoughtful meditation on spiritual, faith, self-realization, universality, and the constant conflict between human vanity and the human spirit.” Many believed he was on his way to becoming an important rock artist before his untimely death. The story behind SPIRIT TOUCHES GROUND'S posthumous release has been told on VH1 and Good Morning America. On the new CENTER OF SIX Josh's songs are in search of the self, songs about the journey inward. The title song refers to finding a center in the six Native American directions, and speaks of memory of "when the wind blew… when the sky knew…. when the earth told me not to forget." Although they speak of spiritual longings, Clayton-Felt songs are never far from the catchy rock riffs he wrote throughout his career, music described by Jeff McDermott of Connect Savannah as "both heady and earthy, a winning pop-grind that satisfies the hips and the head." On CENTER OF SIX they include the hard-driving “Two Sides” and the lively “Forever Self.” In the CD’s single, the story-telling “Sacred Mountain,” Josh imagines a future he did not have. The songs were composed in the winter of 1996-97 in Kinsale, Ireland and recorded in Los Angeles. The CD’s co-executive producer was Chad Fischer, a musician and longtime friend of Clayton-Felt’s. The second half of the album attests to the ripple effect of Josh's musical and personal energy, in the eight songs that friends have written for him. From Raina Lee Scott's powerful heartbreaker, "You Have Been Freed" to the lyrical, rolling, resolution-seeking "Only Love", the songs provide an amazing kaleidoscope of ways of taking in the loss of someone too young, very dear, and full of the force of life. Former lead singer of Men at Work Colin Hay's "Dear J" evokes a diminished world -- "It's a mighty world, but not so mighty without you." Other artists on CENTER OF SIX include Kevin Hunter of the former San Francisco band Wire Train; the Los Angeles musician Jami Lula, who dedicated his most recent CD to Clayton-Felt; the Olympia, Washington musician and actor Andras Jones; the Irish musician and composer Linda Buckley. On “Only Love,” Los Angeles musician Renee Stahl wrote the melody for a poem by the actor Renee FAIA; the two recorded it together. Faia also served as art director on the CD. Los Angeles musician Sage, referring to Josh as "Dragonfly" after the haunting SPIRIT TOUCHES GROUND song, described the process of writing his song: "The Gibson Les Paul I played is Josh's very own. I recorded it one night shortly after the beginning of the Dragonfly's journey, it still had his old strings on, I tried to let these vibrate and guide me like footsteps to the next note… " CENTER OF SIX will be pre-released at the Josh Clayton-Felt Memorial Concert to Benefit the Descendants of the Earth, to be held Sunday, May 4th, from 2 to 8 p.m. at the House of Blues, Hollywood. The release date for the CD will be May 6th. All profits from CENTER OF SIX will be donated to Descendants of the Earth, a non-profit Native American organization to which Clayton-Felt was dedicated. # # # SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY: With School of Fish: School of Fish, 1991, Capitol Human Cannonball, 1993, Capitol
As a Solo Artist: Inarticulate Nature Boy, A&M, 1995 Josh Clayton Felt Like Making A Live Album, Talking Cloud, 1997 Beautiful Nowhere, Talking Cloud, 1999 Spirit Touches Ground, Dreamworks, 2002 Center of Six, Talking Cloud, 2003
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Marilyn Felt Talking Cloud Records 617-782-0026 Sarah Adler 310-393-3432 |
