Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Sev­er­al fans of ca­lyp­so leg­end Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co left dis­ap­point­ed yes­ter­day af­ter ar­riv­ing at the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA) in San Fer­nan­do, hop­ing to view his body, on­ly to learn that the cas­ket would re­main closed. The body of Spar­row, born Slinger Fran­cis­co, lay in re­pose in the venue’s Lit­tle The­atre lob­by as mem­bers of the pub­lic gath­ered to pay their fi­nal re­spects.

At the fam­i­ly’s re­quest, pho­tog­ra­phy and video record­ing of the cas­ket were pro­hib­it­ed.

A large full-body por­trait and an­oth­er famed pho­to of Spar­row were dis­played, while a book of con­do­lences was avail­able for mourn­ers to sign.

Among those who came to pay trib­ute was Agatha Paul, who grew up in Point Fortin and has loved Spar­row’s mu­sic since child­hood. She said, like Spar­row, her fa­ther was a Grena­di­an.

Paul said she was dis­ap­point­ed that she could not see his face but re­spect­ed the fam­i­ly’s wish­es.

“Dis­ap­point­ed that I wasn’t able to see his face. They said no pho­tographs; I put my phone in my bag when I came in, I wasn’t even tak­ing a chance to take a pic­ture of the sur­round­ings.”

Paul re­called wait­ing as a young girl for a bus car­ry­ing Spar­row and oth­er ca­lyp­so­ni­ans to pass through Point Fortin on their way to per­for­mances. How­ev­er, she said she would be at his fu­ner­al cel­e­bra­tion on Fri­day.

“I was there for Shad­ow. I was there for Ex­plain­er, and I will cer­tain­ly be there for Spar­row to jump from In­de­pen­dence Square Rad­i­ca Sir­jue, 78, said if she knew it would be a closed cas­ket she would not have at­tend­ed.

“I find they sup­posed to cater for the el­der­ly who want to watch Spar­row. From a lit­tle girl grow­ing up he is who I know, Spar­row. I find they could have let the poor peo­ple see Spar­row.”

De­spite their dis­ap­point­ment, some mem­bers of pub­lic still left smil­ing as they re­flect­ed on their mem­o­ries of the leg­endary per­former.

“Spar­row was a jew­el in our crown,” said Den­nis Bazie, 86, of La Brea, who added that his pass­ing has left a great void in the ca­lyp­so world.

Moko jumbie mas­ter Ju­nior Bis­nath, who re­cent­ly re­ceived a na­tion­al award, al­so paid trib­ute, bring­ing a ten-foot steel-frame mu­si­cal note ac­com­pa­nied by a ban­ner fea­tur­ing pho­tographs of Spar­row and high­light­ing his achieve­ments.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic were al­so in­vit­ed to sign the ban­ner.

Bis­nath in­tends to present the trib­ute to Spar­row’s fam­i­ly to take back with them to New York. He said he has been pay­ing trib­ute to de­ceased cul­tur­al icons in this man­ner for years and sees it as his du­ty. “Trinidad is the on­ly Eng­lish-speak­ing coun­try in the coun­try that us­es the Eng­lish lan­guage so ver­sa­tile that you can say a word and mean some­thing else, and Spar­row has sung on al­most every top­ic. That is what makes Spar­row the Ca­lyp­so King of the world,” he said.

Al­so pay­ing his re­spects, Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) pres­i­dent An­cel Ro­get said Spar­row was more than a ca­lyp­son­ian or a leg­end, not­ing that his mu­sic ad­dressed the strug­gles of or­di­nary peo­ple. In 2015, the OW­TU pre­sent­ed Spar­row with an award at its San Fer­nan­do head­quar­ters.

“Be­cause Spar­row, through all his top­ics, all of the lyrics that he sang, to us what was re­al­ly telling was where he ad­dressed the is­sues of the small man. The is­sues of labour, the is­sues of cap­i­tal­ism and so on, and how does that af­fect the every­day lives of the peo­ple and the mass­es,” he said.

Spar­row died on Sep­tem­ber 27 at the age of 91 fol­low­ing a brief ill­ness. His body was repa­tri­at­ed from New York on Oc­to­ber 6.

The Gov­ern­ment will ho­n­our the ca­lyp­so icon with a State-as­sist­ed fu­ner­al and a na­tion­al Cel­e­bra­tion of Life on Fri­day.

A pub­lic view­ing will al­so be held to­day at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts in Port-of-Spain.