The Mighty Sparrow, the King of Calypso, dies at 91

The Mighty Sparrow died on Sunday, September 27, in New York. He was 91. His family said he died after a brief illness. Born Slinger Francisco in Grand Roy, Grenada, on July 9, 1935, he grew up in Trinidad and became the best-known calypso singer in the world.

The first crown

In 1956 his song "Jean and Dinah" won both the Calypso King title and the Road March in Trinidad. It was about the US troops leaving the island, and about the women who had made a living around their bases. Robert Mitchum recorded it the next year.

That set the pattern for the rest of his career. Over the next decades he won 8 Calypso Monarch titles and 8 Road Marches, and he was named King of Kings twice.

Songs that followed the news

Sparrow wrote about whatever the region was talking about. "Model Nation" was his song for 1962, the year Trinidad and Tobago became independent. In 1979, "Dead or Alive" was about Idi Amin and the Shah of Iran. His records from the late 1950s carry titles like "Russian Satellite" and "Mad Bomber".

New York

By the mid-1960s he was living in Queens, and the Caribbean community in New York became his second home crowd. In July 1969 the New York Amsterdam News ran an ad for three nights of "A Calypso Spectacular" at Madison Square Garden, with Sparrow at the top of the bill. The ad called him "The Calypso King of the World".

He kept performing into his 80s. He came back to the stage in 2014 after a coma the year before, and released "Live at 85!" in 2020.

The tributes

Jamaica's prime minister Andrew Holness said: "His songs became part of the soundtrack of Caribbean life and culture." Trinidad and Tobago's prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said: "Today, our nation mourns the loss of an icon." Machel Montano called him "the greatest to ever do it".

His family called him "an institution in the entertainment industry, well admired for his skill and finesse as a singer, songwriter and mentor." No funeral date has been announced.