Kamla: Grand Stand to be renamed in Sparrow’s honour

Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ters Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Mia Mot­t­ley have laud­ed the Mighty Spar­row for his con­tri­bu­tions to Caribbean cul­ture, not­ing that his tal­ent as a sto­ry­teller went be­yond that of an or­di­nary en­ter­tain­er and was clos­er to that of a his­to­ri­an, doc­u­ment­ing the evo­lu­tion of Caribbean peo­ple and so­ci­eties across decades.

To prop­er­ly ho­n­our his lega­cy, Per­sad-Bisses­sar has an­nounced that the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah’s Grand Stand will be for­mal­ly re­named to ho­n­our the late cul­tur­al leg­end.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­vealed the name change dur­ing her trib­ute at his fu­ner­al at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, not­ing that the ho­n­our was a fit­ting trib­ute to a man who spent most of his life pi­o­neer­ing ca­lyp­so and so­ca as art­forms.

She not­ed that the Caribbean, specif­i­cal­ly Trinidad and To­ba­go, owed his fam­i­ly a debt of grat­i­tude, as the Grand Stand was, in many ways, the fo­cal point of T&T’s cul­tur­al and en­ter­tain­ment scene.

“One of the great­est names in our cul­ture will for­ev­er stand there at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah. I am there­fore deeply ho­n­oured to an­nounce that the Grand Stand of the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah will bear the name of Dr Slinger Fran­cis­co,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

“From this day for­ward, when T&T gath­ers there to cel­e­brate our cul­ture, the name Spar­row will stand there above all of us.

“Spar­row hand­ed us his mu­sic, it is our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to car­ry it for­ward, then to build some­thing even greater. I say we will re­fur­bish the Grand Stand and we will re­name it in ho­n­our of the Mighty Spar­row.”

Re­call­ing her own ex­pe­ri­ences lis­ten­ing to the Mighty Spar­row’s mu­sic as a child in her moth­er’s roti shop, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the en­ter­tain­ment leg­end held a spe­cial place in the hearts and minds of all Caribbean peo­ple, adding that his tal­ent could not be lim­it­ed by na­tion­al­i­ty.

“There is some­thing beau­ti­ful­ly Caribbean about his jour­ney, so we ho­n­our more than an ex­tra­or­di­nary man. We ho­n­our Caribbean pos­si­bil­i­ty, we ho­n­our the idea that some­one can emerge from these small is­lands, Grena­da and Trinidad and To­ba­go and pro­duce work so pow­er­ful, that ge­og­ra­phy can­not con­tain his work.”

She thanked the Mighty Spar­row for his abil­i­ty to blend hu­mour, melody, keen ob­ser­va­tion and sharp com­men­tary to change the way Caribbean peo­ple and art­forms are seen.

Ear­li­er, Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley, dur­ing her trib­ute, de­scribed the Mighty Spar­row as a philoso­pher and in­tel­lec­tu­al, whose abil­i­ty to con­vey mes­sages us­ing his style and flare was wor­thy of praise.

Mot­t­ley, who be­gan her ad­dress quot­ing vers­es from Spar­row’s 1963 sin­gle The Slave, not­ed that if any­one gath­ered at the cer­e­mo­ny did not recog­nise the lyrics, then Caribbean lead­ers would have failed in their job.

“More than any­thing else, it hit me that we have a du­ty to en­sure that one who walked among us and one who al­lowed our voice to rise loud and pow­er­ful gave us the core of what we as a post-colo­nial peo­ple must seek to do.”

She, there­fore, im­plored Per­sad-Bisses­sar to work with her in pro­mot­ing the in­clu­sion of Spar­row’s songs as part of the school cur­ricu­lum, not­ing that the themes of his mu­sic touched on im­por­tant as­pects of Caribbean his­to­ry and lifestyles.

“I hope, Kam­la, that you and I can join and per­suade the rest of our fel­low prime min­is­ters ... to be a core part of the CXC cur­ricu­lum so that every sin­gle child of this Caribbean un­der­stands both the pain, but the mis­sion that that song pre­sent­ed.

“I don’t think there is a stronger the­atri­cal per­for­mance of any song in the Caribbean from when we took con­trol of our fate.”

Mot­t­ley al­so praised T&T’s mu­sic gen­res, not­ing that while Amer­i­can art­forms like jazz ex­posed the world to the abil­i­ty of mu­si­cians to im­pro­vise mid-song, ca­lyp­so shared pi­cong, not­ing that fig­ures like Spar­row were im­por­tant in re­lat­ing to the mass­es.

“We have a du­ty in every sphere in which they have ex­pressed great­ness to show those who will come af­ter, for when peo­ple say we ‘punch above our weight,’ you can­not sim­ply ac­cept that there are lim­i­ta­tions to what we can achieve.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar lat­er said she would work along­side her Caribbean coun­ter­parts to en­sure Prime Min­is­ter Mot­t­ley’s sug­ges­tion be­came a re­al­i­ty.

Speak­ing with re­porters be­fore the cer­e­mo­ny in the au­di­to­ri­um of NA­PA, Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Michelle Ben­jamin ac­knowl­edged that while she agreed that en­ter­tain­ment leg­ends should be ho­n­oured while they were still alive, she would con­sult with Cab­i­net on what else could be done to en­sure they were tak­en care of.