Tony Rakhal-Fraser
Before we get to King Sparrow, the moderns, and their contributions to national development and self-assertion, it’s vitally important to note that calypsoes and calypsonians were in front of the band, in a manner of speaking, as the Chantwells in the era of labour’s rise-up against colonial rule and injustice, first during the period of Cipriani, then Uriah “Buzz” Butler and Adrian Cola Rienzi.
Prof Hollis Liverpool in God, the Press and Uriah Butler chronicled how the likes of Executor, Tiger, and Atilla-plus placed their ability to communicate with the masses in a manner that arguably no other public communicators can, in support of labour leaders and the working class. Our young people in general, the students of history and the sciences too, need to fortify themselves with knowledge of calypsonians in that revolutionary period against the inequities of British colonial rule.
The bards have not only sung about “wine and jam.” “Yuh get up one morning and oil money running, how it come yuh don’t know, yuh don’t care how de ting go, but if yuh read bout Uriah, yuh go find about the pressure, how they get so much ole hell to get ah penny from TLL,” two generations after the 1930s, Black Stalin reminded of the struggles of the ancestors in the oil industry. We shall also touch on the calypsonians being part of that other significant struggle, that against the local governors in the neo-colonial period of 1970.
The Mighty Sparrow, having won the 1956 calypso competition with his Jean and Dinah story, the young bard with a different look on another form of injustice, used his status as Calypso King to make a statement in the approach to the 1957 Calypso King competition at Dimanche Gras through his refusal to participate. “I intend to keep meh calypso on the shelf, let them keep the prize in the Savannah for dey own self, let de Queen (Jaycees Carnival Show) run de show without steelband and calypso, who want to go they could go up they but me ent going no way.”
A revolt against race and class discrimination and injustice. He was joined in the boycott by another forerunner calypsonian, Lord Superior (Andrew Marcano), who was sure of the value of the calypsonian: “She gets refrigerators, machine, radios and even motor cars, all the King gets is ah Brass Crown on his head.”
What the two did was to raise the stakes on the value of the calypso and calypsonian above the singing for a bottle of rum. Superior told me of taking a visitor to a restaurant in downtown Port-of-Spain (Lotus) to be met with a sign at the top of the stairs: “No dogs and calypsonians allowed.”
Even later than the 1950s, Sparrow made it known that “Calypsonians really ketch hell for ah long time to associate yuhself with them was ah big crime, if yuh sister talk to ah steelband man, she family want to break she hand, lick out every teeth in she mouth … pass yuh outcast,” locking the calypsonian and the steelband man and their art forms into a battle for recognition. The full story of the contribution of Slinger Francisco (Hon PhD) is waiting to be fully researched and written, maybe some bright spark student researching a PhD will turn his/her attention to the subject.
In an interview, Sparrow said of his and his great friend and sparring partner, Lord Melody, when they both entered the big bad world of the USA. He (Melody) went to track down Harry Belafonte, who had interpreted his calypsoes Boo Boo Man and Shame and Scandal in the family. He, Sparrow, wanted Belafonte to open the way for him to perform and get associated with the right people in the big wide world of show business; his focus was sharp; he wanted to get into the big times.
Most assuredly, there were a handful or two of calypsonians who had gone abroad long before Melody and Sparrow, the intention of the Bird was to popularise calypso on the back of what had gone before, including the incision made by Belafonte. At home in T&T and in the region, out of the carnival season, Sparrow sought to convert the calypsonian into a full-time professional of a quality and meaningful art form. He did a couple other things: he owned a record shop, drove an Opel Kapitan, Melody, had a Triumph sports car, and later on, Kitchener owned a Jaguar, and Superior a Mercedes Benz.
Sparrow built an entertainment centre (Sparrow’s Hideaway) adjoining his home in Petit Valley and performed in expensive and well-tailored suits. What all of that and far more did was to raise the profile of the calypsonian and the art form, gave a measure of respectability and meaning to their endeavours, and surely, by extension, brought attention to the lifestyle, the culture of the lower classes of society.
It could not be missed that Sparrow adopted a special place in the genre of calypsonians singing about which woman he jammed. Occasionally, though he admitted to getting his share of blows from Sandra, Theresa, and Rose.
I shall continue.
Tony Rakhal-Fraser is a freelance journalist, former reporter/current affairs programme host and News Director at TTT, programme producer/current affairs director at Radio Trinidad, correspondent for the BBC Caribbean Service and the Associated Press, and graduate of UWI, CARIMAC, Mona, and St Augustine Institute of International Relations.
