Soyi­ni Grey

Se­nior Re­porter

At 90, Slinger “The Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co is as vi­brant as ever.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia via tele­phone from his New York home amid birth­day cel­e­bra­tions yes­ter­day, Spar­row laugh­ing­ly re­count­ed how de­spite his nine decades, peo­ple still wish him many more years to come.

Asked how that made him feel, he said, “Good. They could wish as much as they want, but I will just take as much as I could han­dle.”

Fran­cis­co be­gan singing in 1950s. His ca­reer is dis­tin­guished by its va­ri­ety as Spar­row crossed gen­res and sang on var­i­ous top­ics with ease. On his 1969 record­ing of On­ly A Fool with By­ron Lee and the Drag­o­naires, Spar­row’s vo­cals were rem­i­nis­cent of a clas­sic croon­er like Frank Sina­tra.

His list of al­bums be­gan in 1958 with Ca­lyp­so Car­ni­val. His last al­bum of orig­i­nal ma­te­r­i­al seems to be 2018’s Fyaah and Fury.

Mu­sic so­ci­ol­o­gist Dr Mea­gan Sylvester said for the man born in Grena­da but ful­ly baked in Trinidad, Fran­cis­co in­vest­ed time and en­er­gy in­to his ca­reer, thus se­cur­ing his lega­cy.

“What made him suit­able is the work he would have put in­to prac­tice, per­for­mance, de­liv­ery, the choice or the choos­ing of par­tic­u­lar songs, sit­ting down with ca­lyp­so writ­ers ... de­cid­ing, does this song suit me?” she said.

Vibe CT 105fm an­nounc­er Rossano Daniel, bet­ter known as Dr Ross, said Spar­row’s “sto­ry­telling is the essence of ca­lyp­so” and he is a mas­ter sto­ry­teller. And in his many songs, in­clud­ing Dr Ross’ per­son­al favourite Salt­fish, to Mel­da to the slight­ly more re­cent Ly­ing Ex­cus­es, the Ca­lyp­so King of the World told sto­ries with his songs. He al­so high­light­ed Spar­row’s re­silience.

Ross is host­ing Trib­ute to Spar­row 1 at the South­ern Acad­e­my of the Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA) on Ju­ly 26. He re­count­ed see­ing Spar­row per­form in To­ba­go fol­low­ing a lengthy ill­ness and watch­ing him aban­don his wheel­chair in his zeal to per­form.

Cul­ture lover, tent man­ag­er and for­mer ca­lyp­son­ian Hugh Dol­land wit­nessed some­thing sim­i­lar in 2012, when he took the vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian back to Grena­da for what was sup­posed to be his farewell con­cert, and Spar­row asked Dol­land to fa­cil­i­tate an open-air con­cert in his home­town of Grand Roy

“He per­formed there for the en­tire com­mu­ni­ty. I mean you had hun­dreds of per­sons there gath­ered, and he sat there, and he sang all his beau­ti­ful ... a num­ber of his se­lec­tions ... and I can tell you it was great­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed,” Dol­land re­count­ed yes­ter­day.

Through­out his ca­reer, Spar­row has bat­tled many a health scare due to his di­a­bet­ic con­di­tion. He has al­so weath­ered many a ru­mour about his demise. It formed the ba­sis of one of his hits from the 70s—Spar­row Dead.

In his lat­er years, Spar­row re­newed his faith in God and was bap­tised in 2022.

Asked yes­ter­day what song of his he want­ed peo­ple to lis­ten to on his birth­day, Spar­row said Sal­va­tion, a gospe­lyp­so song he record­ed in 1993.