Pan, mas and a king’s farewell

Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

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It was more a cel­e­bra­tion than a fu­ner­al yes­ter­day, as steel­pan mu­sic, tra­di­tion­al mas and the red, white and black of na­tion­al flags brought the streets of Port-of-Spain alive for Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co’s farewell pa­rade.

From In­de­pen­dence Square, along Fred­er­ick Street to the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA), peo­ple lined the route, flags in hand.

Stu­dents from schools across Trinidad joined tow­er­ing moko jumbies and blue dev­ils, while mu­sic trucks and the All Stars Steel Or­ches­tra pro­vid­ed the sound­track to a farewell filled with the cul­tur­al con­tri­bu­tions Spar­row had car­ried to the world.

For pan­nist and mu­sic pro­duc­er Dane Gul­ston, who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the pa­rade, the cel­e­bra­tion was fit­ting for the ca­lyp­so leg­end.

“He lived as a king and he died as a king,” he said.

Gul­ston said the oc­ca­sion recog­nised a cul­tur­al fig­ure whose con­tri­bu­tion ex­tend­ed be­yond Trinidad and To­ba­go to the Caribbean and the world.

“To­day is cel­e­brat­ing a re­al king of the cul­ture,” he said.

He de­scribed a hap­py feel­ing among those gath­ered, say­ing that joy re­flect­ed Spar­row’s abil­i­ty to en­ter­tain and bring hap­pi­ness to peo­ple through his work.

Gul­ston said it was an ho­n­our and a plea­sure for cul­tur­al prac­ti­tion­ers to share the oc­ca­sion with Spar­row’s fam­i­ly and friends, while re­mem­ber­ing what he had giv­en to the coun­try and the re­gion.

“It’s free­dom to en­joy, to en­joy Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin, who al­so par­tic­i­pat­ed in the pa­rade, said the turnout demon­strat­ed the depth of the coun­try’s af­fec­tion for Spar­row.

“I think every­one could see that the na­tion is in mourn­ing,” she said, de­scrib­ing him as “the gi­ant, the leg­end that we are about to say farewell to.”

Ben­jamin said peo­ple had come from through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go to pay their re­spects. She ex­pressed grat­i­tude for their pres­ence and said the Gov­ern­ment had been able to ho­n­our the wish­es of Spar­row’s fam­i­ly.

“Of course, we are sad­dened by the mo­ment that we have to say good­bye, but I was glad that as a Gov­ern­ment and min­is­ter, we were able to ho­n­our the fam­i­ly’s wish­es and we have the priv­i­lege of say­ing good­bye,” she said.

The farewell al­so reached be­yond those gath­ered along the streets.

Ben­jamin said livestream­ing al­lowed Spar­row’s in­ter­na­tion­al fol­low­ing—the wider fam­i­ly drawn to him and Trinidad and To­ba­go through his tal­ents—to par­tic­i­pate.

Dig­ni­taries al­so trav­elled to Trinidad to pay their re­spects, she added.

Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne, who joined the pro­ces­sion, said the city had been play­ing its part in ho­n­our­ing a fig­ure whose in­flu­ence ex­tend­ed far be­yond the cap­i­tal.

“The Mighty Spar­row is a leg­end, not just for us in the city of Port-of-Spain, but al­so for all of the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go and across the re­gion and across the world,” he said.

Al­leyne said the city’s sup­port in­clud­ed work­ing with con­cerned cit­i­zens to clean Spar­row’s stat­ue near the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

A trib­ute pro­gramme fea­tur­ing sev­er­al ca­lyp­so­ni­ans was al­so held at City Hall the pre­vi­ous day, he said.

That in­volve­ment con­tin­ued with ser­vices on the streets for the pro­ces­sion.

“We’re play­ing our part to­day in terms of the ser­vices that we have on the street to make sure that the city has been pre­pared for the cel­e­bra­tion,” Al­leyne said.

Asked about fur­ther trib­utes, he said a con­ver­sa­tion had be­gun with­in the cau­cus.

“At the ap­pro­pri­ate time, we’ll be able to make an an­nounce­ment,” he said.

For sup­port­er Do­lores Sylvester, who al­so took part in the pa­rade, the farewell was fit­ting, al­though she would have liked to see Spar­row’s Grena­di­an roots rep­re­sent­ed by that coun­try’s flag.

“It was well de­served,” she said of the trib­ute.

Sylvester said a Grena­di­an flag should have been in­clud­ed to ac­knowl­edge his birth­place along­side the coun­try where he grew up.

“He was born there, grew up here and every­thing else here,” she said.

An­oth­er par­tic­i­pant, Cathy Robin­son, said she had come “to sup­port the great­est King of Ca­lyp­so.”

She al­so want­ed to have fun, take part and en­joy her­self, an ap­proach she be­lieved Spar­row would have wel­comed.

“This will be the ex­act thing he would like every­one to par­tic­i­pate in,” Robin­son said.

Born Slinger Fran­cis­co in Grena­da on Ju­ly 9, 1935, Spar­row grew up in Trinidad and first rose to promi­nence with his 1956 hit Jean and Di­nah, build­ing a ca­reer that car­ried ca­lyp­so to au­di­ences around the world.

The cel­e­brat­ed singer and song­writer, known as the Ca­lyp­so King of the World, died in New York on Sep­tem­ber 27, 2026, aged 91.

Along the pa­rade route, na­tion­al flags, school­child­ren, tra­di­tion­al mas and steel­pan gave pub­lic ex­pres­sion to the farewell. Ben­jamin cap­tured the mix­ture of grat­i­tude and grief in one sen­tence.

“To­day is a great and a sad day in the same way.”