Sparrow's death revives Brooklyn link to Straker's Records, says Granville Straker's daughter
The calypso king died exactly a month after the Vincentian-born 'Godfather of Soca', whose label released Sparrow recordings in the 1970s.
NEW YORK, United States. The death of the Mighty Sparrow on Sunday, September 27, exactly one month after the death of Vincentian-born record label founder Granville Straker, has brought another part of Straker's legacy to the surface, his daughter says.
"The Mighty Sparrow was not simply an artist whose music my father admired; Straker's Records was part of Sparrow's recorded history," Dr Suzanne Straker Greenidge-Hewitt, a physician and director of the Granville Straker Legacy Project, told Caribbean Life.
In 1970 the Brooklyn-based label released "The Best of The Mighty Sparrow, Live at The Blue Coronet in Brooklyn", followed by more Sparrow singles in the early 1970s.
"Sparrow was a friend of our family, and I remember my father affectionately referring to him as 'Birdie,'" she said. "I can only imagine daddy and 'Birdie' together again, making music in heaven."
The family says the label released an estimated 600 to 700 albums, more than 1,000 12-inch records and several thousand singles over about three decades, by artists including Calypso Rose, The Mighty Shadow, Black Stalin, Chalkdust, Lord Nelson and Machel Montano.
A bridge builder
Granville Straker, regarded as the "Godfather of Soca Music", died on August 27 aged 86. At his funeral in Brooklyn on September 20, his cousin, Pastor Louis Straker Jr, son of former St Vincent and the Grenadines deputy prime minister Sir Louis Straker, said he arrived in America in 1959 and worked as a mechanic before building a Caribbean music business.
"He connected St. Vincent, Brooklyn, Trinidad, America, the Caribbean, the Diaspora," Pastor Straker said. "He was constantly building bridges."
Regional tributes
The Mighty Sparrow, born Slinger Francisco in Grenada and raised in Trinidad and Tobago, died peacefully in Queens at 91 after a brief illness, his family said.
Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said: "Sparrow was a true patriot and revered ambassador of Trinidad and Tobago's culture."
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley said: "Calypso gave the ordinary West Indian a voice. Sparrow carried it to the world with incomparable genius. Born in Grenada and raised in Trinidad, he belonged to all of us."
St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Godwin Friday said "the Caribbean has lost an unmistakable voice" and that Sparrow's contribution to calypso and the region's cultural identity "is immeasurable."
