DESCRIPTION:
Video By James R. Yetman
NewfoundlandTreasures Video Production

The Isle Aux Morts Boys band members are Joshua Skinner - lead guitar, Barry Coleman - bass guitar, Freeman Walters - accordion/harmonica, and Melvin Rose - vocals and rhythm guitar.

Some of the band started playing together back in the early seventies with manager Joe Lawrence's help. They were known then as Ocean Fancy. In 1973 they recorded their first album with Ontario's Audat Records in St. John's. Ocean Fancy consisted of Joshua Skinner, Barry Coleman, Harold Osmond, Jerome Pearce and Lloyd Strickland. The band became increasingly popular until 1978 when some members moved on. About that time Joshua and Barry teamed up with Keith Ball, Raymond Osmond, and Donnie Hodder to form the Leftover Band. They played together until 1986 when Freeman Walters joined the group. Not long after, in October of 1987, the Isle Aux Morts Boys were officially formed and recorded their first album, My Island Home, at Sim's Studio in Belleoram. During the next three years the band would produce three more cassette tapes, all at their own studio in Isle Aux Morts: My Newfoundland Shore, 1988; Isle aux Morts #3, 1989; and The Sweetest Of All, 1990. The band recorded their fifth cassette album, If I Won The Lotto, before Keith Ball moved to Halifax and then to Fort St. John, British Columbia. No one loved singing and living in Newfoundland more than Keith, but he was forced to move with the codfish closure. Melvin Rose joined the band officially around 1998.

Joshua and Barry played music with Keith for about twenty years and hoped for the day they could have a reunion, but Keith died March 1, 2002, at only 45 years of age. Most of his family lives in Halifax, and he is sadly missed, but his singing lives on with the five tapes he recorded with the Isle Aux Morts Boys. The band still plays all the songs Keith made into popular hits, and he can be heard singing a new song on the band's latest CD, Fishing For The Best.