Josh Clayton-Felt (May 18, 1967 – January 19, 2000) was an American singer-songwriter. He grew up outside of Boston, Massachusetts, and attended high school at the Cambridge School of Weston. He later enrolled at Brown University, but discontinued studies soon after to found the band School of Fish.
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. Clayton-Felt later returned to Los Angeles after leaving Brown in haste to pursue his to-be successful artistic endeavors, following Weide's original advice. School of Fish later went on to be a highly successful American band in the late 1980s through the mid- 1990's. Weide delivered the eulogy at Clayton-Felt's funeral, after his death from testicular cancer in early 2000.
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.[1] It scored airplay on college radio, and led to tours with Tori Amos and Del Amitri.[2] 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, a particularly aggressive cancer, and died a month later at the age of 32.[3] In 2002, Dreamworks Records released a collection of songs from the unfinished Center of Six sessions;[4] Talking Cloud Records also released an album under this name in 2003.