Orin Gor­don

I’m not an ex­pert on ca­lyp­so. I’m a guy who loves mu­sic in all forms and gen­res – from Michael J to Bar­ring­ton Levy to Moloko. I’ve in­stant re­call of the lyrics of hun­dreds… a walk­ing, talk­ing, liv­ing, breath­ing karaoke ma­chine. I’m mar­i­nat­ed in Spar­row’s mu­sic. He wasn’t just of Trinidad and To­ba­go and Grena­da, where he was born in 1935. Birdie left his mark in the Caribbean and well be­yond. More on that short­ly.

For now, let’s do this… choose one song from his vo­lu­mi­nous body of work. That’s like ask­ing which of your 12 chil­dren you love the most, but still. I’m by­pass­ing his bet­ter-known clas­sics and choos­ing Don’t Back Back, from 1984. It marked an im­por­tant step in the tran­si­tion of car­ni­val mu­sic. It won car­ni­val road march that year (beat­ing Gimme de Ting from his great ri­val, Lord Kitch­en­er), com­bin­ing jump-up street cred with Spar­row’s peer­less sto­ry­telling. The open­ing was lyri­cal gold.

“The fete was crowd­ed and she was tight

While I was ground­ed, she high in flight..."

With his death, Spar­row pre­saged the words of the town crier more than half a cen­tu­ry ago, with this vivid im­agery:

“If you see this woman

With a flag in she hand

She bang she bel­ly

Telling every­body, Spar­row dead!”

Spar­row’s sto­ry­telling sum­moned the old-time racon­teur who could spin a riv­et­ing yarn, parts of which sound­ed true, parts of which sound­ed make-be­lieve. David Rud­der, Mighty Shad­ow and Bun­ji Gar­lin paint­ed vivid pic­tures; but Spar­row was ar­guably in a league of one. His sto­ry­telling drew on African tra­di­tion. But while the roots may be one thing, the art form has be­come what T&T is as a mul­ti­cul­tur­al na­tion. Dru­patee Ram­goon­ai and Rik­ki Jai revered and were in­flu­enced by him.

You could hear Spar­row’s in­flu­ence in the Tradewinds (front­ed by Guyanese Dave Mar­tins, and based over time in Cana­da and the Cay­man Is­lands), to the Mer­ry­men of Bar­ba­dos, to Ja­maican/Amer­i­can Dance­hall artiste Shag­gy.

Spar­row stands on the pan­theon of the great­est-ever Caribbean mu­si­cians along­side Bob Mar­ley, a con­tem­po­rary he nev­er­the­less out­lived by 45 years. Mar­ley cit­ed Spar­row as an in­flu­ence, and they en­joyed each oth­er’s com­pa­ny. One can hear sim­i­lar res­o­nances in Mar­ley’s War and Spar­row’s Dead or Alive. Be­tween them, they traced an­ti-Apartheid, lib­er­a­tion, colo­nial and im­pe­ri­al­ist strug­gles in An­go­la, Mozam­bique, Pak­istan, Iran, the Cen­tral African Re­pub­lic and Nicaragua, and name-checked Jean Be­del-Bokas­sa and Anas­ta­sio So­moza.

Spar­row could do naughty play­ful­ness bet­ter than any­one, but here he showed his se­ri­ous po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary chops. Lon­don Bridge lament­ed the de­cline of the British Em­pire, but he re­turned to play­ful form with Philip My Dear. He let his mind wan­der over the 1982 in­ci­dent in which a Buck­ing­ham Palace in­trud­er made his way in­to the bed­room of Queen Eliz­a­beth. In a fic­tion­al re­count of the in­ci­dent to Prince Philip, the Queen com­pared the in­trud­er un­favourably to her hus­band. “Sor­ry dear, I mis­con­strued, when I took him for you.”

In Ly­ing Ex­cus­es, he “brave­ly cov­ered” Ms Leach with “meh whole body” to pro­tect her from an at­tack of bees on Mara­cas Beach. Spar­row per­fect­ed the art of tongue-in-cheek tall tales, but he wasn’t alone in that. Lord Nel­son’s King Liar is a clas­sic of the genre.

In Don’t Back Back, the crowd crush meant that “on she bam bam, ah had to brace.” On that and oth­er things, he was a man of his time. To­day, women on the road on Car­ni­val Tues­day ob­ject to un­known men bump­ing and grind­ing in­to them, un­in­vit­ed. Cuff dem Down, which holds that a woman won’t love her man un­less he hits her now and again, won’t get air­play to­day. In Obeah Wed­ding, Spar­row de­scribes Mel­da’s un­at­trac­tive­ness with the kind of breath­tak­ing bru­tal­i­ty that no cur­rent singer would dare im­i­tate. Jean and Di­nah cel­e­brat­ed his ac­cess to cut-price pros­ti­tu­tion.

Does this mat­ter? Yes and no. It’s part of the whole and has to be not­ed – but it doesn’t de­tract from his in­com­pa­ra­ble oeu­vre. So­ci­etal evo­lu­tion is a thing; but there’s one, unar­guable con­stant. Spar­row’s great­ness, his un­matched out­put and his place in mu­sic. I haven’t even scratched the sur­face. The 2027 car­ni­val trib­utes will be some­thing.