Resh­ma Ra­goonath

The Mighty Spar­row be­gan his mu­si­cal jour­ney as a choir­boy at New­town Boys' RC, a foun­da­tion which led him to his "anoint­ed" du­ty as the hero of the "low­er class" in a post-In­de­pen­dence T&T.Spar­row's ca­lyp­soes, ac­cord­ing to lit­er­ary icon Earl Lovelace's es­ti­ma­tion yes­ter­day, made him the cham­pi­on of the mass­es strug­gling to find an iden­ti­ty as T&T tried to find its own iden­ti­ty as a na­tion, post-colo­nial­ism.Yes­ter­day stu­dents from 17 sec­ondary schools, in­clud­ing Bish­op's Trin­i­ty East, Tabaquite Sec­ondary, Bar­rack­pore West Sec­ondary, Na­pari­ma Girls' High School and St Fran­cois Girls' Col­lege, were treat­ed to an aca­d­e­m­ic analy­sis of Spar­row's work by Lovelace at the sec­ond in­stall­ment of the UWI Dis­tin­guished Lec­ture Se­ries, If Spar­row Say So: A trib­ute to the Might Spar­row. It was held at the Rudranath Capildeo Learn­ing Re­source Cen­tre, Cou­va.

Lovelace's pre­sen­ta­tion, ti­tled "Leav­ing Roy­al Jail", was ac­com­pa­nied by Lord Re­la­tor. Yes­ter­day's lec­ture was chaired by Vic­tor Ed­wards, who said the se­ries was a "cel­e­bra­tion" of love and good­will.The se­ries has been or­gan­ised by Can­boulay Pro­duc­tions. To­mor­row David Rud­der will de­liv­er his lec­ture on Spar­row at Na­pari­ma Bowl, San Fer­nan­do, at 7 pm.Guardian Me­dia Ltd is the ex­clu­sive me­dia part­ner in the se­ries ho­n­our­ing the Mighty Spar­row, the world's most em­i­nent ca­lyp­son­ian.Spar­row, speak­ing with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day at the lec­ture, said he was ho­n­oured to be fea­tured and the se­ries had giv­en ca­lyp­so­ni­ans a promi­nence which had been lack­ing."We are very thank­ful and grate­ful, I mean if this is just part of what is go­ing to hap­pen, we are on the way to suc­cess, def­i­nite­ly," he said.For most of Lovelace's dis­course Spar­row was ab­sent but as Re­la­tor be­gan singing Car­ni­val Woman, he en­tered the am­phithe­atre singing his pop­u­lar hit.

Al­though there was a tech­ni­cal hic­cup with the mi­cro­phone, Spar­row did not let that de­ter him as he sang over the thun­der­ous ap­plause of the au­di­ence, who rose to their feet to wel­come him.

He treat­ed stu­dents to his mega hit Con­go Man and the au­di­to­ri­um erupt­ed in cheers as they sang along with Spar­row.Af­ter the lec­ture he was mobbed by ea­ger stu­dents who clam­oured for his au­to­graph and pho­tos with him.He sang his ad­vice to the young stu­dents, the open­ing verse of Ed­u­ca­tion."Chil­dren go to school and learn well, oth­er­wise lat­er on in life you will ketch re­al hell. With­out an ed­u­ca­tion in your head your whole life will be mis­ery, you bet­ter look well. For there is sim­ply no room in this whole wide world for an un­e­d­u­cat­ed lit­tle boy or girl. Doh fol­low idle com­pan­ions or you will get burn to earn, to earn you got to learn," he sang.Spar­row as­sured his health is in good stead as he told stu­dents: "Don't mind I am walk­ing with a cane, I am still the king."

Lovelace, in his hour-long "per­for­mance lec­ture", hailed Spar­row as the hero of the low­er class whose mu­sic showed T&T the re­al­i­ty of its so­ci­ety.He said Spar­row's pur­pose in ca­lyp­so was "anoint­ed" be­cause when he stood up against the Car­ni­val com­mit­tee in the late 1950s over the "50 cents" prize mon­ey he be­came the voice of the down­trod­den – the pan­men and the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans – all of whom had be­come part of the "jam­mette" class he re­ferred to in his mu­sic."Spar­row has been our chantwell and the ex­pres­sion of our con­fi­dence, swag­ger, ir­rev­er­ence and hard work," Lovelace con­tend­ed.He said Spar­row's con­tri­bu­tion to the T&T iden­ti­ty and mas­culin­i­ty of the black man in the post-in­de­pen­dence era made him a gi­ant among many.Spar­row's lyri­cal prowess made him the Anan­si of T&T, a "mas­ter trick­ster," who could be both a hero and a vil­lain and he used his mu­sic to re­flect the re­al­i­ty of so­ci­ety as he saw it.