In the midst of the cel­e­bra­tion of Ca­lyp­so His­to­ry Month, the ca­lyp­so fra­ter­ni­ty in T&T was yes­ter­day plunged in deep­er mourn­ing with the sud­den pass­ing of vet­er­an Win­ston “De Orig­i­nal De Fos­to” Scar­bor­ough, 64.

It was on­ly on Tues­day that Scar­bor­ough, who was well-known for his “steel­pan tunes,” had sung ca­lyp­soes as he bid farewell to Win­ston “Mighty Shad­ow” Bai­ley at Shad­ow’s fu­ner­al at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain. He was al­so in the process of pen­ning a “hu­mor­ous” trib­ute ca­lyp­so in Bai­ley’s mem­o­ry.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, Scar­bor­ough is be­lieved to have suf­fered a mas­sive heart at­tack while at his Al­mond Court, Mor­vant, home last night. He was dis­cov­ered dead by his son, Gabriel, at about 8 am yes­ter­day.

One of his col­leagues, Franz “De­lamo” Lam­bkin, said he along with his col­leagues in the art form were in shock over the death.

“Just on Tues­day he was im­mac­u­late­ly dressed in white at Shad­ow’s fu­ner­al and singing and danc­ing and so full of en­er­gy. This is so shock­ing news,” Lam­bkin told Guardian Me­dia.

“I un­der­stand that his son nor­mal­ly checks on him and when he got no an­swer to his calls by his bed­room door he went in and found him dead. I be­lieve he would have died in his sleep.”

Lam­bkin said Scar­bor­ough was orig­i­nal­ly a trom­bon­ist and “many moons ago” he de­cid­ed to “jump in the ring.” “En­ter­ing in­to the ca­lyp­so world, De Fos­to proved him­self as a nat­ur­al. He arranged his own mu­sic in the ear­ly stages,” he re­called.

“When Lord Kitch­en­er died we thought that De Fos­to was the man to fol­low in Kitch­en­er’s foot­steps af­ter he be­gan cre­at­ing a se­ries of pan songs. De Fos­to was very pa­tri­ot­ic and he wasn’t too hap­py where the coun­try was go­ing and he made this known through his ca­lyp­soes. In the last he got in­volved in so­cial com­men­tary but was al­ways melod­ic.”

Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) pres­i­dent Lu­ta­lo “Broth­er Re­sis­tance,” Masim­ba said he last saw Scar­bor­ough at the fu­ner­al and nev­er thought that would have been his last sight­ing of his “broth­er.”

“I spoke to him and he was in good spir­its. He sang and was very boun­cy and good to me. This is a shock and in ex­tend­ing con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly, TU­CO will meet and see how best we can cel­e­brate his life as we are still the cel­e­bra­tion of Ca­lyp­so His­to­ry Month.”

Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and the Arts Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said she was deeply sad­dened by Scar­bor­ough’s pass­ing.

“This is yet an­oth­er na­tion­al icon and pa­tri­ot lost, it is al­most too much to bear hav­ing seen him just a few days ago at Shad­ow’s fu­ner­al. This is three in one year,” Gads­by-Dol­ly not­ed in ref­er­ence to the fact that the deaths of ace pan­nist Ken “Pro­fes­sor” Philmore and Shad­ow had pre­ced­ed De Fos­to’s.

In a state­ment, she de­scribed De Fos­to as a “true pa­tri­ot, singing not for the glo­ry but for the love of coun­try.”

“He was pas­sion­ate and deeply in love with this coun­try. He will be re­mem­bered as a pro­lif­ic com­pos­er and per­former, al­ways dressed in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s na­tion­al colours,” Gads­by-Dol­ly said.

“He was well loved for his abil­i­ty to cre­ate the ide­al ‘pan tune’ – ca­lyp­soes, with songs like Pan Lamen­ta­tion, D great­est In­ven­tion, We Come Out To Play which in­spired na­tion­al pride,” she added.

On Sep­tem­ber 5, in his last of­fi­cial in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian, Scar­bor­ough thanked God for giv­ing him an “ex­tra” bout to life.

In May this year, Scar­bor­ough be­gan ex­pe­ri­enc­ing se­vere short­ness of breath, ex­haus­tion and “very” high-pres­sure read­ings. His heart was af­fect­ed and as a re­sult, be­came big­ger than the nor­mal size and was said to be work­ing at just 35 per cent. In June, he was hos­pi­talised and said to be very low. In the in­ter­view, Scar­bor­ough ad­mit­ted that he nev­er took the time to take care of his health but gave the as­sur­ance that since he fell ill he had be­gun car­ing for him­self, in­clud­ing eat­ing the right di­et.

Scar­bor­ough was hope­ful his health would have picked up in time for the Car­ni­val 2019 pe­ri­od. Soon af­ter col­lect­ing a cheque from TU­CO for over $13,000 in cash – funds raised from a ben­e­fit con­cert or­gan­ised to fi­nan­cial­ly as­sist him with his med­ical bills –, Scar­bor­ough said he was look­ing for­ward to hit­ting the tent with a tune ti­tled “Boom Bam.”

Scar­bor­ough was aban­doned as a ba­by and found in the Bel­mont area by a To­bag­on­ian woman named Beat­rice Clark. Clark took him to the Tacarigua Or­phan­age where the sur­name “Scar­bor­ough,” bor­rowed from the cap­i­tal of To­ba­go, was giv­en to him.

His mu­si­cal abil­i­ty was recog­nised very ear­ly in his life and was nur­tured by the or­phan­age where, even­tu­al­ly, he learned to play the trom­bone, read and score mu­sic.

Scar­bor­ough made his pro­fes­sion­al singing de­but in 1976 with “Chicks Come Out to Play.”