OCEANSIDE, CA (Top40 Charts) Bill Isles, an original member of the chart-topping R&B group The O'Jays, has died at his Southern California Home. He was 78.
Bill Isles died of cancer last month at his home in Oceanside, just north of San Diego, his son, Duane Isles, told The San
Diego Union-Tribune. The funeral for Bill Isles was held Saturday.
Bill Isles and his childhood friends in Canton, Ohio, formed the Mascots in 1958 before changing the name to The Triumphs and releasing a single in 1961. The band changed its name to The
O'Jays after getting pivotal advice from a Cleveland DJ named Eddie O'Jay.
Isles was featured on such notable songs by the
O'Jays as "Lonely Drifter" in 1963 and "Lipstick Traces" in 1965. He quit the group soon thereafter and married the woman who would be his wife for 52 years, Laural. But Isles didn't turn his back on music for long. According to son Duane, Isles worked as the O'Jays' tour manager from 1971 to 1974, a time that saw the group score such hits as "Back Stabbers," "
Love Train" and "For the Love of Money."
Isles spent the latter part of the 1970s in Los Angeles before moving his family in 1981 to Oceanside. In 1985, he opened a family business, Nutri Power, a vitamin manufacturing and food supplement company that he guided until the mid-1990s. After several years doing consulting work, he retired around 2000.
Isles had stepped back from his professional music career, but he continued to sing, albeit out of the public eye. He was a member of the Oceanside New Venture Christian Fellowship choir until late 2018, when his health began to ebb and he could no longer sing.
"Billy Isles was exceptional, not only with his voice, but with his buoyancy on stage," said New Venture Christian Fellowship's senior and founding pastor, Shawn Mitchell, who will preside at the Saturday services for Isles.
"Of all the thousands of congregants I've had the privilege of pastoring over the past three decades, Billy Isles was one of the most memorable, loving and consistently upbeat and talented individuals I have had the privilege of knowing.
"He was a lover of music and a lover of God, and he combined both of those on stage in extraordinary fashion."
In addition to his wife, Laural, Isles is survived by his sons, Duane, Donnell, Billy III and Terry Isles; his daughters, Denise Isles-Taylor, Rheutitia "Tish" Isles and Laural Gadison; his brother, Ron Isles; sisters Catherine Ann Burt, Johnnie Mae Everett and Octavia Joyce Isles; and by seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
