Prince Ronald: Still dreaming at 50

By Balford Henry, Senior Staff Reporter

Ronald Hunter - Ian Allen

WE CAUGHT up with Ronald Hunter
sitting in the yard of Sonic Sounds Limited, Retirement Road, Kingston, just over a week ago, strumming his guitar hoping and praying to be discovered at the age of 50.

Hunter, a former member of a group known as the Tryan hails from Orange Street in Kingston and now a solo artiste, as Prince Ronald, has been singing since the age of eight. But, despite his failure to make an impact since 1959, he insists: "I still believe I can have a number one tune. I have the talent. I just need the management."

It is the kind of will and commitment that has kept dozens of his colleagues standing around studios waiting for their chance to break, even past the age of retirement.

After years of recording for major labels which refused to release his songs, Hunter says that the closest he came to a breakthrough was a song titled Stop Fussing and Fighting in the 1970s, for his own label, Golden Heights. However, just as the song seemed ready to take off, a vinyl shortage hit the industry and he was unable to get copies printed fast enough to capitalise on the demand.

Hunter, who was also a studio musician, went to England. He said that on his return home, he was kidnapped, taken to Trench Town and robbed of his money and documents. He never fully recovered.

Treatament

"Dem beat me so bad, I couldn't even find me yard. A somebody find me an carry me home. I couldn't even remember nutten," he said.

Nowadays, Hunter burns and sells coal in Constant Spring, where he lives with a family of six. The members of his group have all gone back to their other trades ­ carpentry, masonry and furniture making but, although he has five children and a wife to take care of, he still invests in a career he insists will, eventually, take off.

"I just write a song name Golden Remembrance of Time. I think it can work in the dancehall," he says.

He has also been working on an album. He believes this is his future, not selling coal.

Hunter exemplifies the faith of Jamaican vintage artistes, whose commitment to making a success of their dreams of being singing stars is of such that neither age, nor family responsibilities nor the effects of
drugs can stop them from pursuing it.

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