The Jamaica Observer’s Entertainment Desk continues with the 30th in its series during Child Month highlighting some of Jamaica’s young performers who shot to stardom.

Youngest member of The Wailing Wailers that formed in Trench Town circa 1963, Junior Braithwaite, may also be the group’s most tragic story.

In June 1999, he was shot and killed at a friend’s house in Kingston. Braithwaite was 49 years old and attempting to resurrect a music career that began promisingly.

His heartfelt vocals on the ballad It Hurts to be Alone remains Braithwaite’s signature song. In a 1998 interview with the Jamaica Observer, he recalled recording the song just days before migrating to the United States.

“Di man dem sey, ‘mek Bratty sing it ‘cause him soon leave’. An’ dat’s how it guh,” he recalled.

Braithwaite was 13 years old when The Wailing Wailers formed. His colleagues were Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Bunny Livingston (later Wailer) and depending on varying accounts, Beverley Kelso and Cherry Green.

American journalist David Katz, in his obituary on Braithwaite in The Guardian newspaper, had several revelations.

“Though Marley was the only group member with prior recording experience, and was the most prolific songwriter, Dodd considered Braithwaite the superior vocalist; he was accepted as the lead singer in the early days. Braithwaite recorded a handful of other songs with the Wailers, singing lead on Habits. He was notably present on the lesser hits, I Am Going Home and Do You Remember. His strong tenor also gave harmonic depth to ska adaptations of the gospel traditional Amen, Jimmy Clanton’s Go Jimmy Go and Dion’s Teenager in Love,” Katz wrote.

Braithwaite told the Jamaica Observer that he hoped to become a physician in Chicago where he settled with his family. But he found life tough in the Windy City where he remembers getting reacquainted with Marley at one of his shows in the mid-1970s.

After re-settling in Jamaica during the 1990s, Braithwaite tried to reignite his music career. A project with Bunny Wailer was short-lived but he made an appearance on the popular Heineken Startime live show.

Junior Braithwaite’s death continued a sorrowful summer for Jamaican music in 1999. Saxophonist Tommy McCook and dub artist/musician/producer Augustus Pablo died in May, while Dennis Brown died in July of that year.