COUNT PRINCE MILLER OF “MULE TRAIN” FAME DIES AT 83!

Observer senior writer—

Count Prince Miller, a singer best known for the 1971 hit song Mule Train, died yesterday in London. He was 83 years old.

Anthony “Chips” Richards, the former Trojan Records executive, told the Jamaica Observer‘s weekly Splash that Miller passed away in a hospice in Pimlico, south London, from prostate cancer.

Minister of Culture, Entertainment and Sport, Olivia Grange and George Ramocan, Jamaica’s high commissioner to London, recently visited the ailing Miller in hospital.

Born in St Mary, Miller moved to the United Kingdom in the 1960’s and became part of that country’s growing West Indian entertainment scene. He was closely associated with soul group Jimmy James and The Vagabonds and Wilburt “Count Suckle” Campbell, a pioneer of the UK sound system movement.

Mule Train, his reggae interpretation of a much covered country and western song, was a massive hit for Trojan Records. Miller’s dramatic live performance of Mule Train, which included google-eyed expressions and walrus-type sounds, was always a crowd-pleaser.

He was also an actor who had a recurring role in Desmond’s, a popular British comedy based on a Guyanese-owned barber shop in London. In the 1990’s, Miller won acclaim for playing Marcus Garvey in the well-received play, Black Heroes In The Hall of Fame, and had a small role in the 2003 movie, What A Girl Wants.

He was awarded the Order of Distinction for his contribution to music by the Jamaican government in 2007.