Kangaloo: Sparrow was a great interpreter of Caribbean life

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo has de­scribed the late ca­lyp­so leg­end Dr Slinger Fran­cis­co, bet­ter known as the Mighty Spar­row, as one of the great in­ter­preters of Caribbean life, whose mu­sic helped gen­er­a­tions un­der­stand their cul­ture and iden­ti­ty.

In a trib­ute fol­low­ing Spar­row’s death on Sun­day, at the age of 91, Kan­ga­loo said Trinidad and To­ba­go had lost more than a cel­e­brat­ed ca­lyp­son­ian, but a voice through which the na­tion came to un­der­stand it­self.

The Pres­i­dent shared her re­flec­tions on Spar­row’s life and lega­cy dur­ing Sun­day evening’s Cel­e­brat­ing 50 in Steel con­cert at the Pres­i­dent’s Band­stand, where sev­er­al artistes al­so paid trib­ute to the leg­endary per­former through their mu­sic.