JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

For Kelsey Bobb, The Mighty Spar­row’s mu­sic was a con­nec­tion to her child­hood, her Guyanese par­ents and her late fa­ther — one strong enough to bring her from New York to Trinidad and To­ba­go for just a day to pay her re­spects.

Bobb was among those who at­tend­ed the pub­lic view­ing at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) yes­ter­day, where re­stric­tions pre­vent­ed mourn­ers from see­ing Spar­row’s body but al­lowed them to pay their re­spects at his cas­ket.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Bobb said her Guyanese par­ents raised her on Spar­row’s mu­sic, mak­ing it im­por­tant for her to be present de­spite the short trip.

“I flew in this morn­ing from New York and I leave tonight. I had to come pay my re­spects. There’s no one like Mighty Spar­row. The first genre I was ex­posed to was Ca­lyp­so, and the first artist was Mighty Spar­row. My par­ents, that’s all they played. So it’s a part of me. It will al­ways be a part of me. So I had to pay my re­spects. That’s some­thing that im­pact­ed me my whole life.”

Bobb said she was not dis­ap­point­ed that she could not view his body, ex­plain­ing that see­ing the cas­ket was enough for her to pay her re­spects.

“I was okay with that be­cause once I saw the cas­ket, I was able to pay my re­spects. I blew him a kiss. My dad, who in­tro­duced me to his mu­sic, passed away. I wrote in the con­do­lences book, ‘Say hel­lo to my dad­dy. And you guys are hav­ing a great time.’”

Eliz­a­beth Bain, a back­up singer for Spar­row, said she grew up know­ing him be­cause he fre­quent­ly vis­it­ed her fam­i­ly’s home, as her moth­er was a song­writer.

She lat­er sang back­up for Spar­row dur­ing a Di­manche Gras per­for­mance of Both Ah Dem.

Fel­low mu­si­cian Bun­ny By­noe re­called rush­ing to see Spar­row per­form when­ev­er he had the op­por­tu­ni­ty.

Mean­while, for­mer mem­ber of the Cum­mings and the Wail­ers band said Both Ah Dem was among his favourite Spar­row songs.

An­oth­er artiste, Daniel Brown, bet­ter known by his so­bri­quet, Trinidad Rio, said the coun­try needs a greater ap­pre­ci­a­tion and un­der­stand­ing of ca­lyp­so and its im­pact on so­ci­ety.

Asked what could be done to bet­ter ho­n­our those who paved the way for Ca­lyp­so and So­ca, Brown main­tained that ed­u­ca­tion was the key.

“Let them un­der­stand what Ca­lyp­so is all about. Ca­lyp­so is much more than the mu­sic. It’s a cul­ture that we’re sup­posed to un­der­stand. We don’t un­der­stand it enough. We still be­lieve that Ca­lyp­so be­longs to the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and that ca­lyp­so­ni­ans are sup­posed to un­der­stand kaiso more than any­body else. Ca­lyp­so is a na­tion­al thing!”

He said that while no one may ever at­tain the na­tion­al sta­tus achieved by Spar­row, he ad­vised those en­ter­ing the genre to first love what they do and put their faith in God.

Samuel Simp­son, of Simp­son’s Fu­ner­al Home, said it was an ho­n­our to bury the man re­spon­si­ble for im­mor­tal­is­ing the fam­i­ly’s busi­ness name in song through The Fu­ner­al Agency Man. He re­called that his fa­ther and Spar­row were friends and that he was of­ten teased as a child af­ter the song was re­leased.

Simp­son list­ed Good Cit­i­zen and Uni­ty as his favourite Spar­row songs, say­ing the lyrics of both re­main rel­e­vant to­day and speak to many of the re­al­i­ties cur­rent­ly fac­ing so­ci­ety.