DAVID CUFFY

The Mighty Spar­row has proved him­self as the quin­tes­sen­tial ca­lyp­son­ian, par ex­cel­lence, with more than 70 al­bums to his cred­it. He is rich­ly en­dowed with many gifts

He pos­sess­es an amaz­ing abil­i­ty not on­ly to put in­to works and tem­po the ex­ploits of so­ci­ety, but to crown it all with show­man­ship and ap­peal. His great con­tri­bu­tion to the art form and our lives has un­rav­eled the mys­ter­ies of Caribbean life, leav­ing the pro­fes­sion­al­ly trained so­ci­ol­o­gist and econ­o­mist be­fud­dled.

A com­bi­na­tion of tal­ent, hard work and op­por­tu­ni­ty en­abled Spar­row's as­cen­dan­cy to Ca­lyp­so King of the World. He brought hon­or, glo­ry and dig­ni­ty to an in­dige­nous art form that was once scorned up­on by the elite of Caribbean so­ci­ety. He is one ex­tra­or­di­nary en­ter­tain­er who utilis­es the medi­um he mas­ters not just to en­ter­tain but al­so to ed­i­fy, en­light­en, and ed­u­cate.

The T&T Guardian spoke with a range of peo­ple con­nect­ed with cul­ture in this coun­try to hear what they feel Spar­row's im­pact has been on our na­tion­al life and cul­ture.

"His mu­sic we all grew up with, and even as it is played years lat­er to a new gen­er­a­tion it still re­mains fresh. The work of a true mae­stro.....a class act!" - Ger­ald Agos­ti­ni, broad­cast­er and ad­ver­tis­ing spe­cial­ist.

"Slinger Fran­cis­co is to ca­lyp­so what Robert Nes­ta Mar­ley is to reg­gae. The cat­a­log of his work cov­ers every form of hu­man en­deav­our, and apt­ly de­scribes every as­pect of the hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence. Now that the term 'icon' has been re­duced to the pedes­tri­an, as has the term 'com­mu­ni­ty leader,' the on­ly be­fit­ting so­bri­quet would be 'Cul­tur­al Colos­sus.' - Robert May­ers, fi­nan­cial con­sul­tant.

"I grew up in a house where our moth­er bought and played Spar­row's LPs alone! We had no choice, and so his mu­sic and lyrics have stuck in my head even to this day. Take Yuh Bun­dle And Go, and so many more. Ly­ing Ex­cus­es, for the clever lyrics and fan­tas­tic melody. So­ca Pres­sure, the mas­ter­ful dou­ble en­ten­dre in Ben­wood Dick, and oth­ers to nu­mer­ous to men­tion. Birdie sang for Ex­o­dus The Band Plays On, which was in trib­ute to my late broth­er Amin.

"Slinger Fran­cis­co is the supreme ca­lyp­son­ian. Hop­ing he would re­cov­er from his ill­ness, and our prayers are with him." - Ainsworth Mo­hammed, man­ag­er Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus.

"There is no ca­lyp­son­ian alive to­day on whom Spar­row has not im­pact­ed. Most ca­lyp­so­ni­ans when com­pos­ing think of Spar­row in terms of lyri­cal mea­sure­ment, melody, phras­ing and de­liv­ery. Spar­row, there­fore, is the ide­al and ul­ti­mate stan­dard for ca­lyp­so com­po­si­tion and per­for­mance." - Chalk­dust (Dr Hol­lis Liv­er­pool).

"Ed­u­ca­tion. It rang like an alarm bell in my head all through pri­ma­ry school. Fed­er­a­tion, Dan Is The Man, Slave, We Like it So, and One Love strong­ly awoke and sus­tained my po­lit­i­cal and so­cial sen­si­tiv­i­ties, and made me more solid­ly Caribbean. Spar­row is an icon that, through much of his life, rep­re­sent­ed the bold­ness that youth could and should be. In that re­gard he is a mod­el to our na­tion, as far too many of our youth are switched off too ear­ly and live to sim­ply sat­is­fy the sta­tus quo and not get in­volved in shap­ing their own fu­ture.

"I wish him well, re­gard­less of whether he stays on this side of the di­vide or cross­es over." - Prof Bri­an Copeland.

"Well, I nom­i­nat­ed Spar­row for T&T's high­est ho­n­our, the Or­der of T&T at this year's In­de­pen­dence Awards, so that should tell you how I feel about him. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, this is not a place that is kind to art and the peo­ple who make it. Spar­row's lega­cy is the joy he brought to so many, and will con­tin­ue to bring for gen­er­a­tions to come. He is one of a kind." - Den­nis Ramdeen, mar­ket­ing spe­cial­ist.

"Spar­row through his mu­sic cre­at­ed the foun­da­tion for a na­tion­al cul­ture. He and Kitch are our great­est artists. Peo­ple might rate Naipaul high­er be­cause he's got a No­bel Prize but I think he is tru­ly great.

"Spar­row came to the fore in 1956, the year that Er­ic Williams first came to pow­er. It was a sym­bol­ic year, be­cause it was the year ur­ban Black Trinidad got ready to take this coun­try to In­de­pen­dence. Spar­row was their cul­tur­al arm and every­body – Black, White or In­di­an – loved Spar­row.

"Any­one who heard any of Spar­row's great hits, re­mem­bered them for the rest of their lives. If I sing, 'al­ways in cus­tody, mih friends and mih fam­i­ly...', you know what comes next.

"He is to us like the Bea­t­les for the Eng­land and Mar­ley for Ja­maica." - Dr Kim John­son, his­to­ri­an.

VOX POP

T&T Guardian re­porter Bo­bie-Lee Dixon, spoke to peo­ple in Port-of-Spain about the Mighty Spar­row. She asked, "What has been the Mighty Spar­row's im­pact on our livesand our cul­ture?"

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Name: Steve Smith

Age: 50

Oc­cu­pa­tion: Jan­i­tor

Area: East Dry Riv­er

Spar­row's mu­sic is out of this world. He re­al­ly pushed ca­lyp­so and took it glob­al. I have been lis­ten­ing to his mu­sic since I young and all I can say, is that he is a great icon. He did a lot for the cul­ture and I am sor­ry he is ill, but we must know that we can al­so have con­fi­dence in the young ca­lyp­so­ni­ans com­ing up.

Name: Al­fred Galy

Age: 83

Oc­cu­pa­tion: Prop­er­ty man­ag­er

Area: West­moor­ings

Trinida­di­ans have en­joyed Spar­row's mu­sic and his com­po­si­tions for years. He is one of our best ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and he made an ex­cep­tion­al con­tri­bu­tion to our cul­ture; ca­lyp­so and Car­ni­val.

Name: Cal­isle Work­man

Age: 40

Oc­cu­pa­tion: Taxi dri­ver

Area: Diego Mar­tin

I am a fan of Jean and Di­nah, one of my fa­vorites from Spar­row. He give us some of the best ca­lyp­so in the world and that makes me feel proud to know that he is right from here. I re­al sor­ry he in the hos­pi­tal, if he kicks the buck­et it will be a re­al loss. That would be some­thing gone that you could nev­er ever get back.

Name: Leon Phillip

Age: 52

Oc­cu­pa­tion: Pub­lic ser­vant

Area: Port-of-Spain

I think as a ca­lyp­son­ian he has in­flu­enced me in some way, es­pe­cial­ly with his so­cial com­men­tary. He came from the tra­di­tion­al im­age of ca­lyp­so. I think if they al­lowed Spar­row's so­cial com­men­tary to play in the schools or more of­ten on the ra­dio, peo­ple can learn a thing or two about the so­cial is­sues in our so­ci­ety. He has re­al­ly made a name for him­self in the ca­lyp­so fra­ter­ni­ty, but has al­so placed T&T on the world map with his mu­sic.

Name: Kwame Ka­mau

Age: 34

Oc­cu­pa­tion: En­tre­pre­neur

Area: Ari­ma

Slinger is an icon and a leg­end that tran­scends ca­lyp­so and what he has done for the cul­ture of T&T rep­re­sents the spir­it, vi­brance and hos­pi­tal­i­ty of this coun­try . He has graced the Carnegie Hall and sold out sta­dia. Re­gret­tably more was not done to ho­n­our this icon and to pro­vide a fo­rum for mentees whom looked up to him as a men­tor in the fra­ter­ni­ty. There is no school that one can go to to learn about ca­lyp­so. Slinger could have done that.

Name: Robert Pe­ters

Age: 26

Oc­cu­pa­tion: Pub­lic ser­vant

Area: San­ta Cruz

I am per­son­al­ly not a fan of ca­lyp­so, so he didn't re­al­ly im­pact my life per­son­al­ly, but I can say that he has im­pact­ed great­ly the life of cul­ture in T&T. The min­istry in which I work, I see first hand how much he has re­al­ly done for the art form. He is a leg­end and if we lose him, it will be a great loss.

Name: Ter­nic­ka Ma­ha­bal

Age: 20

Oc­cu­pa­tion: Store clerk

Area: San Juan

I have lis­tened to his mu­sic and he has had some pos­i­tive mes­sages in some of his com­po­si­tions. I love that all his life and with the ex­po­sure he got trav­el­ling the world, he nev­er strayed from the au­then­tic­i­ty of ca­lyp­so mu­sic. I got a chance to see him per­form in at the Brook­lyn Mu­se­um in New York, and not on­ly was the event sold out but peo­ple were re­al­ly en­joy­ing his mu­sic, singing word for word...it was re­al­ly nice.

Name: Kevin Wash­ing­ton

Age: 32

Oc­cu­pa­tion: Net­work ad­min­is­tra­tor

Area: Laven­tille

I am per­son­al­ly a big fan of Spar­row. He has rep­re­sent­ed T&T all over the world....he re­al­ly push ca­lyp­so. He has a wealth of knowl­edge about the art form and can pass on so much of what he knows to the younger ca­lyp­so­ni­ans. Hope­ful­ly he will get the chance to.