NEW YORK — Josh Clayton-Felt's second album has earned rave reviews and is off to a better commercial start than his previous disc. It's the kind of recognition Clayton-Felt had worked years to achieve — before his death from testicular cancer in January 2000.
Clayton-Felt was unable to get "Spirit Touches Ground" released by the time he died at 32. But with the help of family, friends, former associates, radio stations and others who were touched by his brand of inspirational, 1970s-sounding pop, it's been posthumously released.
"There's a trace of sadness that we're not going to be able to follow up all this work by seeing him in concert," said Scott Roller, one of those who helped, "but I think overall what we all feel is happiness that we could be part of getting something so positive out."
Clayton-Felt never had any big hits. He's probably best known as the lead singer of the School of Fish, which had the early '90s hit "Three Strange Days." After the group disbanded, he was signed to A&M Records, and released his debut album, "Inarticulate Nature Boy," in 1995.
It sold only about 8,000 copies, according to sales-tracking company SoundScan; still, he had a devout following. Among those fans: Roller, an employee at Clayton-Felt's label who first met the artist when he was putting up the singer's posters at a concert.
"He said, 'I want to tell you, this means more to me than you have any idea. Thanks so much for helping being a part of letting people know what this is about.' And I said, 'That means more to me than what you know, because no artist has never thanked me for doing this stuff.' "
Roller attributed the album's weak sales to the musical climate at the time.
"It was in the middle of kind of grunge stuff . . . it was just not fitting in," he said. "It was just too positive and too life-affirming for what the music industry . . . was doing at that point."
So when Universal Music Group took over A&M, Clayton-Felt was among hundreds of acts cut to save costs. At the time of his departure, Clayton-Felt had already finished an album, but A&M executives felt it needed more work.
Even though A&M dropped him, they held the rights to the album and would not give Clayton-Felt permission to release it elsewhere.
But Clayton-Felt, a Boston native who dropped out of Brown University to pursue music, was undaunted, and he meticulously reworked "Spirit Touches Ground" to his liking.
"He just sort of stubbornly went into a home studio and just decided to rerecord all these songs his way," said Steven Baker, Dreamworks Records' marketing head who's married to Clayton-Felt's sister, Laura. (Clayton-Felt also had two young half-brothers.)
"I think he was almost compelled; he couldn't stop himself. . . . But I also think at the same time he probably enjoyed it," Baker said.
As he was finishing in mid-December 1999, he was suffering from back pain, symptoms repeatedly misdiagnosed by doctors, his mother, Marilyn Felt, said. Finally, his landlady, who also was a doctor, urged him to go to a hospital where he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Two days later, he was hospitalized.
Still, Clayton-Felt, his family and friends thought he would be OK. Even world champion bicyclist and testicular cancer survivor Lance Armstrong encouraged and advised him.
"He went into chemotherapy, optimistically like he does everything," Marilyn Felt said of her son.
But he would never leave the hospital. The cancer was rare and aggressive, and his lungs began to fail. He died three weeks later.
It was during this time when his family contacted Universal and told them of Clayton-Felt's condition. As he lay dying and unconscious, he got the rights to his music back.
"We whispered to him, you've got your music back," his mother said.
After his death, Clayton-Felt's family worked to ensure his music would be heard.
"It took awhile to get over Josh's passing, but even during the time when Josh was sick in the hospital, his friends and family were anxious to get his final recording out," Baker said.
The family shopped the disc to various labels, without much success. It never occurred to Baker that his own label, Dreamworks, would be the one who had the interest.
"I was in the offices of Michael Austin, who is one of the principals of Dreamworks," said Baker, discussing the problems he was having finding a label.
"Michael said, 'This is ridiculous; we should just put it out through Dreamworks.' "
Although Dreamworks is paying for the distribution of the disc, Clayton-Felt's family is paying for the marketing and promotion. (Baker would not disclose how much it was costing them, but conceded "it's not cheap.")
But those costs have been lessened because dozens of former associates and friends of Clayton-Felt have volunteered their services. Some have volunteered to do free publicity. Music stores impressed by Clayton-Felt have offered to provide free promotional space. And people like Roller signed on to do "whatever I can do . . . I'll hang posters one more time."
As a result, Clayton-Felt's "Spirit Touches Ground," which has been lauded by critics, is getting some radio airplay, and Soundscan reports it has sold about 4,200 copies since its February release.
It all makes Clayton-Felt's family very proud — and sad.
"It's very hard. I hear his voice; his voice is so full of yearning and full of life. The songs that are hardest are the ones that are most bursting with enthusiasm and life," said Marilyn Felt. "But the consolation is that I've come to feel that his spirit is kind of here with us . . . and that many other people are enjoying and responding to his music. That's what he wanted."