Sparrow brings people together one last time

AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

Re­porter

an­ge­lo.je­didi­[email protected]

Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co took his fi­nal bow at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) yes­ter­day. But out­side the venue, his mu­sic was still do­ing what it had done for gen­er­a­tions —bring­ing peo­ple to­geth­er.

At the ca­lyp­so icon’s state-as­sist­ed fu­ner­al in the na­tion’s cap­i­tal, in­stead of tears and sad­ness, the at­mos­phere was filled with re­mem­brance, pride and, of course, a Car­ni­va­lesque cel­e­bra­tion. The event at­tract­ed lo­cal fans, Caribbean devo­tees and in­ter­na­tion­al ad­mir­ers.

Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley was among those who land­ed in Trinidad to pay trib­ute to the ca­lyp­son­ian.

Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen said the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to host the state-as­sist­ed fu­ner­al was im­por­tant, as Spar­row rep­re­sent­ed sev­er­al gen­er­a­tions, with his mu­sic help­ing to take T&T’s cul­ture to the world.

“Hav­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty to say good­bye to the Birdie is a hum­bling ex­pe­ri­ence. Cer­tain­ly, for his fam­i­ly, I know they might have sac­ri­ficed a lot of time with him when he was in the tent, on the road and trav­el­ling. I want to say may God bless you…Spar­row re­al­ly rep­re­sent­ed the essence of T&T,” Ameen told Guardian Me­dia dur­ing the buildup to the event.

To­ba­go Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine al­so re­flect­ed on Spar­row’s con­tri­bu­tion to the arts, point­ing to the im­por­tance of in­vest­ing in the coun­try’s cul­tur­al tal­ent.

“This is a na­tion­al icon, a na­tion­al hero. It shows that once we in­vest in the or­ange econ­o­my, in­vest in cul­ture and the arts, there’s no telling of how far and how big one’s con­tri­bu­tion can be to the globe. This is per­haps an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­mind the coun­try we have to in­vest more in the arts and young peo­ple who are in­to the arts,” Au­gus­tine said.

And while Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les said she re­gret­ted miss­ing the pro­ces­sion, as she was giv­ing her re­sponse to the 2027 Bud­get in Par­lia­ment, she, along with Op­po­si­tion MPs Hans Des Vi­gnes and Ka­reem Mar­celle, joined the rest of the na­tion at NA­PA to pay trib­ute to Spar­row.

“I missed the pro­ces­sion, be­cause I feel that’s where you get the re­al ex­cite­ment, but I’m hap­py to be here,” Beck­les said.

“When you lis­ten to his ca­lyp­soes, the im­pact is not just cul­ture. It’s fi­nance, it’s sports, it’s Cari­com. It’s just about every­thing.”

Many schools and their stu­dents were al­so in at­ten­dance, among them North­east­ern Col­lege, Holy Name Con­vent Port-of-Spain, St Mary’s Col­lege and St Fran­cois Girls’ Col­lege.

“We are a very mu­si­cal­ly in­clined school and Spar­row rep­re­sents what our coun­try needs, which is re­sis­tance, our iden­ti­ty. In the month of Oc­to­ber too, it is Pa­tois Month and he has sung in Pa­tois too, so we are grate­ful to be here,” French teacher Kam­ron Gayah, of Bish­ops Anesty High School East, said.

But while the po­lit­i­cal fig­ures spoke to Spar­row’s na­tion­al sig­nif­i­cance and spec­ta­tors to his cul­tur­al im­pact, it was per­haps the mem­bers of the ca­lyp­so and wider Caribbean mu­sic fra­ter­ni­ty who most in­ti­mate­ly un­der­stood the depth of his in­flu­ence.

Ter­ri Lyons, Iw­er George, Machel Mon­tano, John Michael Al­i­bo­cus (Makamil­lion), Joel ‘Zan’ Feveck, Helon Fran­cis and Ley­don ‘Lord Or­gan­is­er’ Joseph were among the var­i­ous artistes in at­ten­dance.

For­mer ca­lyp­so monarch Ta’zyah O’Con­nor, who per­formed at the fu­ner­al, de­scribed it as an ho­n­our to pay trib­ute to the leg­endary per­former. O’Con­nor al­so not­ed that he shared a dis­tinc­tion with Spar­row, they hav­ing both won the ca­lyp­so monarch ti­tle at the age of 20, mak­ing them among the youngest to achieve the feat.

“It’s sad, very sad that the Mighty Spar­row had to leave us, but you know how it goes. But every path of my ca­reer is in­flu­enced by Spar­row. He was such a great ca­lyp­son­ian. Not on­ly ca­lyp­son­ian, but per­former and en­ter­tain­er. We can’t re­al­ly box him in­to ca­lyp­so be­cause that man was ver­sa­tile,” O’Con­nor said.

For Ker­nal Roberts, son of the leg­endary Lord Kitch­en­er, Spar­row’s fi­nal farewell stirred a wave of per­son­al mem­o­ries and a pro­found ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the Ca­lyp­so King’s in­deli­ble mark on Caribbean mu­sic and his­to­ry.

“It takes me back to 26 years when my dad passed. Sim­i­lar vibe. Send­ing off a king. I’m re­al­ly ho­n­oured to be part of this,” Roberts said.

An­oth­er for­mer ca­lyp­so monarch, Helon Fran­cis, re­flect­ed on the chal­lenge of choos­ing a favourite among Spar­row’s vast reper­toire. A fit­ting re­minder of the breadth of a mu­si­cal cat­a­logue that has ac­com­pa­nied gen­er­a­tions through Car­ni­val and every­day life.

“He was the great­est of all the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans. He was the great­est of all of us. He had all the at­trib­ut­es it takes to be an ab­solute su­per­star.”