BIRDIE FLIES HOME

Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­[email protected]

The life, ca­reer and lega­cy of ca­lyp­so leg­end Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co was yes­ter­day cel­e­brat­ed true to the larg­er-than-life per­sona he craft­ed in charm­ing gen­er­a­tions of mu­sic lovers over decades.

But while Fran­cis­co made a ca­reer from his sharp wit and bari­tone voice, his fam­i­ly said their pa­tri­arch was much more than an en­ter­tain­er, as they shared their cher­ished mem­o­ries of his role as a dot­ing fa­ther at his state-as­sist­ed fu­ner­al at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA), Port-of-Spain.

Dur­ing her eu­lo­gy, one of Fran­cis­co’s daugh­ters, Michelle Fran­cis­co, fond­ly re­called her ear­ly child­hood mem­o­ries with the man many af­fec­tion­ate­ly re­ferred to as ‘The Birdie,’ say­ing that while he fre­quent­ly trav­elled as part of his sched­ule as an en­ter­tain­er, he al­ways found time to speak with her, even if they were hun­dreds of miles apart.

“When­ev­er I was sick, when­ev­er I was up­set, when­ev­er I was fed up with my love­ly sib­lings, it didn’t mat­ter what part of the world Dad­dy was in, wher­ev­er he was, what the time dif­fer­ence was, my mom had to find him,” she told the au­di­ence.

“I would not rest un­til she found him and I can still hear his deep voice ask­ing, ‘Miche ... what’s wrong?’ Those words al­ways made me feel that no mat­ter how far away he was, my dad was al­ways there for me.”

The younger Fran­cis­co said she and her oth­er sib­lings learnt from an ear­ly age that their fa­ther was un­like the fa­thers of their peers, not­ing the nights spent at record­ing ses­sions, shows, ca­lyp­so tents and the bonds formed with back-up mu­si­cians whom she likened to ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly mem­bers.

She said such prox­im­i­ty to the work be­hind the mu­sic in­dus­try was a valu­able ex­pe­ri­ence she car­ried with her to this day.

“I had a front row seat to the great­est artiste that the world came to know. But be­hind the leg­end was dad, and when I think of dad it’s not the stages, mu­sic or ac­co­lades that come to mind, it’s the lit­tle things,” she said.

“I re­mem­ber the feel­ing of his scruffy beard tick­ling my stom­ach when­ev­er he blew kiss­es in­to my bel­ly but­ton, mak­ing me scream with laugh­ter. I re­mem­ber him giv­ing my sis­ter pig­gy­back rides and ask­ing me to walk on his back as I was the small­est.”

But in his lat­er years, Fran­cis­co said he still held on to his pas­sion for mu­sic, not­ing that age did not de­ter him from en­joy­ing the art­form that made him a star.

“Even in his fi­nal days, that love nev­er left him, I re­mem­ber him ly­ing in bed tap­ping his fin­gers and I asked him, ‘Dad­dy are you singing a song in your head?’ He turned to­ward me, he gave me that beau­ti­ful in­fec­tious smile and he sim­ply nod­ded up and down.

“That mo­ment will stay with me for­ev­er. Even when his body could no longer do the things it once could, the mu­sic was still there in his heart, his spir­it and his soul.”

In this way, Fran­cis­co said she hoped her fa­ther’s sto­ry of grit, per­se­ver­ance, and pos­i­tiv­i­ty would con­tin­ue to res­onate among the next gen­er­a­tion of per­form­ers, em­pow­er­ing them to over­come their cir­cum­stances.

Bor­row­ing the lyrics from Frank Sina­tra’s I Did It My Way of­ten per­formed by her fa­ther, Fran­cis­co urged young peo­ple to fol­low their path and do it “their way.”

Her sis­ter, Karen Fran­cis­co, dur­ing her trib­ute, al­so per­formed her ren­di­tion of the same song. At the end of the per­for­mance, she told the crowd it was a full cir­cle mo­ment for her, as some­one had proph­e­sied this would hap­pen when she was a child.

“When I was 11 years old, I heard this song, and I don’t know who said it, but they said I would sing it at his fu­ner­al, but I was scared, and I didn’t think I could. Clear­ly I was wrong.”

Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion pres­i­dent Ains­ley King, dur­ing his fea­ture ad­dress, praised the Mighty Spar­row for his tire­less work eth­ic and con­tri­bu­tions to de­vel­op­ing the art­form, not­ing that to­day’s artistes ben­e­fit from the foun­da­tion laid by him.

“He showed that the art­form was not some­thing small, it was not some­thing sea­son­al, it was not a sec­ondary art­form,” King said.

“His con­tri­bu­tion is al­so a part of the wider sto­ry of who we are as a peo­ple. Through his mu­sic, gen­er­a­tions learned about our his­to­ry, our hu­mour.”

Gen­er­al con­sul of Grena­da to T&T, El­wyn Mc­Quilkin, paid homage to the Grena­di­an-born pi­o­neer, not­ing that he of­ten re­ferred to his birth­place, Grand Roy, as Grand Rey, a play on words, with the lat­ter trans­lat­ing to Big King, fit­ting for his ti­tle as a Ca­lyp­so King.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go be­came his adopt­ed home and pro­vid­ed the soil for him to flour­ish. Even in death, you can­not si­lence great­ness,” Mc­Quilkin said.

Fol­low­ing the trib­utes, there were per­for­mances from a slew of en­ter­tain­ers, among them De­stra Gar­cia, who per­formed a spir­it­ed ren­di­tion of gospel sin­gle Eye on the Spar­row, which drew rous­ing ap­plause from the crowd.

So­ca leg­end Austin “Su­perBlue” Lyons per­formed his ren­di­tion of Joy in My Soul, stir­ring the crowd be­fore singing, “We have been blessed mag­nif­i­cent­ly. Just like Moses part the Red Sea, he (Spar­row) part a way for we, for every­body in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Ed­win “Crazy” Ay­oung, Shur­wayne Win­ches­ter and Ta’za­yah O’Con­nor then per­formed Mem­o­ries.

Rod­er­ick “Chuck” Gor­don and David Rud­der then per­formed Spar­row’s 1959 sin­gle Fed­er­a­tion, a scathing com­men­tary on the pro­posed West In­di­an Fed­er­a­tion. They were even­tu­al­ly joined on­stage by Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters and Bar­ba­dos’ Mighty Gab­by, draw­ing two stand­ing ova­tions from the crowd gath­ered.

Ca­lyp­so Rose ap­peared vir­tu­al­ly, of­fer­ing a trib­ute and con­do­lences to the icon’s fam­i­ly, while Machel Mon­tano per­formed his sin­gle, Almighty King of Ca­lyp­so, which through its lyrics pro­vid­ed a chronol­o­gy of the late ca­lyp­son­ian’s tunes and ac­co­lades.

Fol­low­ing the cer­e­mo­ny, Fran­cis­co’s body was tak­en to an undis­closed lo­ca­tion. He is ex­pect­ed to be buried at a date which the fam­i­ly did not im­me­di­ate­ly dis­close pub­licly.