2013-Nov-01-0945Hrs
Errol this is a bit long, but would you share this with our fellow Mausicans
Launcelot
"A BOUQUET FOR SPARROW
We're taking our time in the Caribbean writing our musical history.Jamaica, as usual in front in such matters, has become involved, but in the Eastern Caribbean, apart from the work of Gordon Roehler, and two books by George Maharaj, we have been rather silent. Part of this neglect, of course, is our tendency to be cavalier about those who have contributed to our rise (a separate sociological treatise awaits there). I wrote a song called Where Are Your Heroes, Caribbean, on this point many years ago, and while some radio stations still play the song the malaise remains.
Today, as he battles with health problems, it is pertinent then to raise a mighty shout for The Mighty Sparrow whom history will have to record as being the most important single contributor to the development of calypso music, hands down. Sparrow is known for having produced an amazing collection of several hundred songs, many of them part of the Caribbean cultural fabric, as well as for his dynamic performances and his singular vocal talent. But the contribution only begins there. Sparrow's most telling legacy will be in the areas of musical composition and in the equally important area of the business environment for calypso.
Whether he had help creating them or not, Sparrow, as a producer of songs, widened the horizons for calypso more dramatically than any other individual. In that, he was pivotal. The tradition of early calypso generally was one of a folk-based music, built around topical or societal subjects of the day. While the lyrical contents of the songs varied, the musical constructions were limited. As David Rudder reminded us in a recent interview, many early calypsonians operated with a handful of melodic approaches; purely as music, the form was limited. While the late Lord Kitchener, himself a very accomplished bassist, contributed somewhat to the widening of this form while living in England, the strictures generally remained. Sparrow came to the arena and simply broke the barriers. He moved away from the repetitious folk tunes and wove in American pop music influences in calypso. While maintaining the sensual rhythmic attack of the music, he put sweeping melodies into the genre and showed us calypso in a more expansive form. Early evidence of the coming change is there in his classic Jean and Dinah where he combined the standard tight calypso verse with an almost ballad-like chorus. From his annual Carnival base, Sparrow threw the doors of the music open and let in a host of influences - Latin; Indian; American - that essentially provided the widened landscape on which a host of other talented writers could parade.
He even influenced Kitchener - you can hear it in Kitch's big hit Sugar Bum - Bum and singers the likes of Lord Shorty, Baron, the Mighty Duke, Shadow,Gypsy, and even latterly David Rudder, were possible because of Sparrow - he opened the window and showed them the view. The effect on musicians and writers was dramatic. I distinctly recall the delight in listening to Sparrow songs in 1960s where the melodic surge was in full flower in a series of songs where the tune almost made you overlook the lyrics - a complete turnaround for calypso. Sparrow took the music in a new direction, and the traditional voices raised in protest ( "Rose is not a calypso,padna.") were soon won over.
For me, a young song-writer in Toronto, planning to form Tradewinds, Sparrow was simply an inspiration; there's no other way to put it. I had been in a kind of a creative suspension, drawn to the calypso form I loved, but also hearing other influences in my head (mainstream ballads; rhythm and blues; classical; folk). Sparrow came out with this startling new calypso form where melody was all over the place, chord progressions from jazz were in use, and counterpoint was common. From his band, anchored by piano boss Bertram Innis, I saw that I could use my love of classical music in the completely contrasting intros I wrote for those Tradewinds songs. It was only later that I saw what had happened - Sparrow had freed me up.
I've acknowledged the influence to him before, and I repeat it now.
Ironically, the very song Where Are Your Heroes, Caribbea, that I had written bemoaning our failure to honour stalwarts such as Sparrow, was itself an example of his influence on my song-writing structures.
Musically, it is the kind of ballad construction that Sparrow would regularly use in his music; the melody in the opening verse of that song - "Every country it seems, without exception, they have memorials and statues to blow your mind" - is pure Sparrow. The influence, subconscious as it was, is unmistakeable.
Off the stage, in the "business" of the music business, Sparrow was pivotal as well as he almost single-handedly revolutionized things. He had come into a calypso arena where calypsonians were subject to shameful treatment by promoters - in the early days they would often be paid with a bottle of rum or a bag of oranges - and even by Sparrow's time, the Trinidad Carnival Calypso King was paid a virtual pittance. With the leverage of the popularity he then achieved, Sparrow took all that by the scruff of the neck and shook it. He threatened to withdraw from the Carnival competition, was calmly firm about it, and other calypsonians followed.
Change followed change. In time, instead of being simply part of the CalypsoTent shows, calypsonians such as Sparrow and Kitchener were the bosses of the tents. In retrospect, the change in Eastern Caribbean music from a frolic to an industry began with the transformation that Sparrow triggered on the business side. Calypsonians, song-writers and bands saw the shift, took advantage of it, and moved to positions of power in the music. When soca came along, and the Sparrow type of calypso took a back seat, few seemed to notice that the very Lord Shorty who was the pivotal force in early soca, had come from that widening process that Sparrow had begun years before. I recall a conversation with Sparrow in Toronto when the soca revolution was building. With that gurgling Sparrow chuckle, he said, "Dave, this new music here is not for me and you, you know; we have too much words." I was on the point of telling him, "Wha you talking 'bout?Is you start this s-t." Maybe I should send him a note to remind him about that conversation.
There should be a row of statues in Trinidad to people such as Spree Simon and Eli Manette and The Mighty Spoiler and Gypsy and Lord Kitchener, definitely, but at the very front of the row we should be looking at a remembrance of what Sparrow did for Caribbean culture. If you measure a person by the impact that he/she has had on the human canvas, Sparrow is a giant. While we wait on the statue, we should be sending him a verbal bouquet. Here is mine.
-- Dave Martins (Tradewinds)"
Dr. Launcelot Brown 74
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