Soyi­ni Grey

Spar­row Take Over is more than a book—it’s a cel­e­bra­tion of a ge­nius still alive among us. Re­leased in ho­n­our of Slinger Fran­cis­co, The Mighty Spar­row, who turned 90 on Ju­ly 9, this strik­ing col­lec­tion of es­says and pho­tographs edit­ed by Don­ny Ben­ny pays trib­ute to the liv­ing leg­end with the rev­er­ence and joy he de­serves. 

Part trib­ute, part time cap­sule, the vol­ume cap­tures the life, lega­cy, and lyri­cal mas­tery of the man who didn’t just per­form ca­lyp­so—he trans­formed it. From ra­zor-sharp po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary to cheeky smut, from haunt­ing melodies to peo­ple’s an­thems, Spar­row mas­tered every cor­ner of the art form.

“Some peo­ple have skills to dance. Some peo­ple have good, beau­ti­ful voic­es. Some peo­ple have skills in dress like Duke, etc, the late Duke. But of all the gifts in mu­sic and ca­lyp­so, I tell peo­ple, God has giv­en the most to Spar­row, for in every area, whether it be com­men­tary, pol­i­tics, or haunt­ing melodies, whether it be smut, Spar­row emerges from the top, so God has giv­en him the most,” she said while speak­ing at the June 6 launch at the Na­tion­al Li­brary in Port-of-Spain. 

She de­scribed it as a book for lovers of ca­lyp­so, Spar­row and his­to­ry. It is al­so sim­ply a love­ly book to have in your li­brary. Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus Gor­don Rohlehr (now de­ceased) leads the col­lec­tion with his es­say “The Emer­gence of Spar­row”. 

In it, he tracks Spar­row’s ori­gins, from his time singing in school and church to his emer­gence in the Kaiso Tent. He was on­ly 20 when he sang ‘Jean and Di­nah’, re­al name ‘Yan­kees Gone’. Rohlehr’s retelling of the song’s back his­to­ry makes it clear that one: the top­ic wasn’t new to ca­lyp­so, and two: Spar­row was still a child when the ‘Yan­kees’ he lat­er sang about were dis­tress­ing some and de­light­ing oth­ers—a first clue, if one were need­ed, of his emerg­ing ge­nius. Rohlehr wrote, “This top­ic had been ex­plored ad nau­se­am in the post-1945 pe­ri­od by Kitch­en­er, In­vad­er, Li­on, Growler, Be­gin­ner, and oth­ers.

It is there­fore quite re­mark­able that Spar­row was able to re­sus­ci­tate it ten years lat­er.” Es­say­ists in­clude Anu Lakhan, a for­mer stu­dent of Rohlehr, who in her sub­mis­sion of­fers a tongue-in-cheek cri­tique of the overt misog­y­ny found through­out his cat­a­logue. Spar­row was a mas­ter at craft­ing melodies so sweet, you’d over­look their wor­ri­some con­text. 

Al­so in­clud­ed are Kei­th Smith, Prof Pa­tri­cia Mo­hammed, and Prof Hol­lis Liv­er­pool—bet­ter known as The Mighty Chalk­dust—who con­tribute a se­ries of lec­tures in all but one sec­tion. In each, he places the man and his mu­sic with­in a spe­cif­ic his­tor­i­cal mo­ment to high­light Spar­row’s aware­ness and in­flu­ence.

In the sec­tion apt­ly named “Mis­chief”, Son­ja Du­mas has an en­try that cel­e­brates one of the best dancers, who called him­self a ca­lyp­son­ian. Spar­row was a win­er.

Videos of his per­for­mances show­case his mas­tery of the skill. He would of­ten lift his jack­et to give an un­ob­struct­ed view of his waist, mak­ing sure noth­ing got in the way of the wine. Du­mas—a dancer and chore­o­g­ra­ph­er her­self—said he was “def­i­nite­ly my first ‘win­ing’ icon”.

‘Spar­row Takeover’ is di­vid­ed in­to sec­tions, five specif­i­cal­ly: that put his life in con­text, ex­am­ine his views on fi­nance, de­tail his pol­i­tics and busi­ness acu­men and, of course, his charis­ma or mis­chief. It is a beau­ti­ful­ly pro­duced book, worth get­ting just for the pho­tos. Spar­row is ex­treme­ly pho­to­genic, which made the pho­tog­ra­phers’ work ef­fort­less.

One ear­ly im­age shows him strum­ming his gui­tar at home for his moth­er—a tru­ly stun­ning im­age. In 2025, mu­si­cians still re­lease al­bums, though they no longer have to. But that wasn’t the mu­sic in­dus­try Spar­row was raised in. He out­paced his peers by the sheer vol­ume of mu­sic he record­ed and re­leased. Back then, al­bums came with cov­ers that had to be care­ful­ly de­signed. This book show­cas­es many of his most mem­o­rable vi­su­als—the strik­ing de­sign of his Spar­row Pow­er al­bum, for ex­am­ple, speaks vol­umes about the artist and his con­fi­dence.

This book’s ad­van­tage lies in its for­mat as a se­ries of es­says and ar­ti­cles, al­low­ing read­ers to ex­plore it in any or­der they choose. You can move freely from the back to the mid­dle, then to the front, with­out miss­ing a beat. And, with apolo­gies to the writ­ers, you could even skip the text al­to­geth­er and sim­ply en­joy the stun­ning vi­su­als. It’s a beau­ti­ful pic­ture book that de­serves pride of place on your cof­fee ta­ble, ready to be eas­i­ly ac­cessed and leisure­ly thumbed through.

The fi­nal word should go to Spar­row’s daugh­ter Karen Fran­cis­co, who spoke at the book launch. “My fa­ther has al­ways said my mu­sic be­longs to the peo­ple,” she said.

“He be­lieves that his songs are not just per­for­mances but sto­ries meant to con­nect us, to up­lift us, and to re­flect on who we are. Af­ter read­ing this book, I can say that it car­ries that same spir­it.”

Spar­row Takeover: Es­says on the Bard’s Art is avail­able at book­stores na­tion­wide.