PHILIPSBURG:--- The death of the Mighty Sparrow brought a rare shared memory into Parliament on Tuesday: a St. Martin performance at which political differences gave way, for an evening, to calypso.
MP Franklin Meyers recalled singing on stage with Sparrow in Maho. Parliament Chair Sarah Wescot-Williams remembered the same visit as one of the most politically unifying events she could recall on the island.
Slinger Francisco, the Grenada-born artist raised in Trinidad and Tobago who became known as the Mighty Sparrow, died at age 91. His official website announced his passing this week. www.mightysparrow.com
Meyers offered condolences on behalf of his faction and the people of St. Martin to Sparrow’s family. The Caribbean, he said, had lost an icon whose music “transcended the ages of calypso.”
“I remember some years ago I was privileged to sing on the stage with him in Maho,” Meyers told Parliament. He wished Sparrow’s family strength and comfort, particularly acknowledging the loss felt in Trinidad and Tobago and Grenada.
Wescot-Williams then added a memory of her own. Referring to the performance Meyers had described, she said she could not recall another event like it for its ability to bring people across political lines together.
“I don’t recall another such politically unifying event as that,” the Chair said, remembering Meyers taking the stage to sing with Sparrow. She noted that Sparrow visited the island again afterward, but said that particular performance stood apart in her memory.
The recollections give Sparrow’s legacy on St. Martin a scene more personal than any list of awards. He was an international star, yet his visit became a shared local experience that two parliamentarians still remembered years later for what happened among the people gathered to hear him.
Sparrow performed on St. Martin on numerous occasions. A tribute published for his 91st birthday in July identified his 2014 concert under the tent at Port de Plaisance as his last performance here. An SMN News notice from 2009 also promoted a concert by Sparrow and his band at the Maho Convention Center, with local calypsonians and musicians on the programme. sxmelections.com
His breakthrough song, “Jean and Dinah,” made him a calypso star in 1956. Over the decades, his voice, humor and sharp observations carried the art form to audiences far beyond the Caribbean. On St. Martin, audiences also had the chance to hear the man himself—and, as Tuesday’s tributes showed, to remember the company in which they heard him. apnews.com
Meyers remembered the honor of singing beside Sparrow. Wescot-Williams remembered people coming together to watch. As Parliament returned to its budget debate, those two tributes marked the passing of an artist whose performance had briefly united a room that politics so often divides.