Low Down Articles
Valley Lives
Article 55 of 146
This article first appeared in the "Valley Lives" column in the February 9, 2022 issue of the The Low Down to Hull and Back News.
Reprinted with permission. Search complete list of Low Down Articles.
o o o
Wayne Hunter
Hills loses music powerhouse
By Hunter Cresswell
The Gatineau Hills lost a musical powerhouse this year.
Wayne Hunter - a prolific Wakefield musician and composer - died in his home music studio on Jan. 26 at the age of 66.
But he lives on through the music he left behind. His wife, Susan Hunter, still listens to his CDs in the Wakefield home they shared for the past decade.
"What a wonderful life he had," she said.
That life saw him make his mark on the arts scene in the Gatineau Hills, raise two children with his wife, and travel across the world. But his life with Susan began in high school.
He grew up in Hull and Susan, born Cosby, grew up in Aylmer. They attended Philemon Wright High School together.
"We didn't know each other but I remember seeing him there," Susan said. "He wasn't there much."
Susan said that Wayne wasn't one for a classroom setting, he preferred real-life experiences or to teach himself.
After high school, a mutual friend introduced them at Susan's Cascades home in 1975. She said it was love at first sight.
They were drawn together by shared interests in spirituality and experimenting with mind-expanding psychedelics, and "animal magnetism."
They lived together for two years in an informal hippie commune in Cascades.
In 1977 Wayne was looking for a job and a new place to live with Susan. He found a wanted ad for the secretive yet prestigious Five Lakes Fishing Club in La Pêche in the Low Down classified pages. The club sought a caretaker so he called them up, told them that he's no handyman but can learn anything, and that he and Susan were married - a requirement for the gig.
Susan overheard his phone call with the club and asked why he said they were married.
"'Well what's the difference, we're going to spend the rest of our lives together isn't that what this is all about?'" she recalls him saying. "And we did. I wished it were a longer one."
Susan's loss is still raw. She sat in the Gatineau River-side home she shared with Wayne and fought off tears while telling the Low Down about his life. Wayne's music was on the stereo, old photographs and CDs were strewn about the living room - reminders of him are everywhere.
The two eloped much to Susan's parents' chagrin. They forced the young couple to throw a reception closer to home to properly celebrate their union. Oct. 26, 2022 marked their 44th anniversary.
Until his death, Wayne and Susan were inseparable. They lived and worked together at the Five Lakes Club for 35 years and also bought, renovated, and sold homes together.
"There's no couple that spent more time together," she said.
The couple had two children, Jeff and Shyla, and two grandchildren.
Besides his wife and children, Wayne's major love in life came from music. He learned to play piano and begged his parents for one as a child. They gave him one at the age of six. At 13 he begged them for a guitar and got one too. He composed over 500 songs during his lifetime.
"He was obsessed with music. We'd have little kids running around, screaming and he'd still have his headphones on, composing," Susan said.
He put out his first CD, "One" by Philosophers Stone Records, in 1995. Aside from some drumming by Chris Honegger and guitar from Martin Piper, all 13 songs were written, played, and composed by Wayne. Susan said she doesn't know how many unfinished songs are on his home studio computer but showed the Low Down three boxes full of his CDs.
Wayne loved music but was shy and withdrawn.
"'This life is not for me,'" Susan recalls him saying during a tour for his first album. "He was the type of guy who liked to get up at sunrise and go to bed at nine. He loved music but did not love the musician's lifestyle."
He stopped touring after that but still composed and played music with friends.
He also made music for Wakefield theatre production company artistic director STO Union Nadia Ross' live productions and videos.
"Wayne had a way of viewing the world from a wide lens, or helicopter view. He had a big brain, a big mind, and could grasp large concepts easily," Ross said about Wayne. "In his music, he wasn't only into his music, he composed music from this larger lens - he knew what songs were for and understood how to construct them. He was a very wise, deep guy. From that place, you can bring people to deep places in simple, direct ways. His songs have that level of elegance, depth and beauty to them. It's been a privilege to have been allowed into his creative world."
A celebration of life for friends and family in the spring.