Tony Rakhal-Fras­er

Spar­row the “Vil­lage Ram”, the wom­an­is­er who knows every­thing about women: “if she salt, if she sweet, if she easy or if she hard to get…”

He ap­peared in 1956 as the na­tion­al­ist agent of re­venge against Yan­kee Sex­u­al Im­pe­ri­al­ism: “Jean and Di­nah, Rosi­ta and Clementi­na … by de sweat of thy brow, thou shall eat bread;” he rec­om­mend­ed to the City Coun­cil that if it want­ed to “keep the city clean,” they had to re­move “Picky Head Eileen, Stink­ing Mout Doreen”; but then de­spite his claim to supreme sex­u­al prowess and know­ing all the se­crets to as­sess ah woman, San­dra leave him: “where are you tonight I won­der… me alone in one big bed all night, on­ly toss­ing to and fro fight­ing with meh pil­low”, and the Vil­lage Ram who ran away from “all dem Bermu­da gyul … de way yuh run­ning away yuh like ah bled­dy lamb;” bet­ter still, the one who threat­ened blows on “Rose, gyul ah love yuh bad, ah go­ing steer­ing mad, Oh Lord oh Lord...” And notwith­stand­ing his claimed su­pe­ri­or sex­u­al prowess and cun­ning, Tere­sa out­smart­ed him, had him turn­ing to plead­ing in­sults: “Yuh wuss than ah dog Tere­sa, gyul yuh break meh heart; this morn­ing yuh take meh dol­lar now yuh play­ing smart … Spar­row dar­ling wait till to­mor­row … Tere­sa ah love you and ah al­ways think­ing about you.”

In an­oth­er tone, Spar­row had women across eth­nic, na­tion­al and lan­guage clas­si­fi­ca­tions: “Sexy Ma­hara­jin … my sweet du­lahin; ” his African beau­ty, “Natasha in Du Du Ye­mi de African woman, “She had wis­dom in she bo­som, ah take a drink of white rum, she say geh me some…” “De Pret­ty lit­tle Mart­ni­quan gyul if yuh hear how she bawl Sa Sa Yea….” “Mar­gari­ta from across the bor­der …Mex­i­co: “We went to ah Can­ti­na and drink up some tequi­la, eat up some tor­tilla and end up in ah casa...”

He con­coct­ed “Ly­ing Ex­cus­es” for his wom­an­is­ing ways; the one at­tract­ed by the “Win­er gyul from Princes Town,” one of his sweet­est melodies along with Rose Oh lard…”

He, the Vil­lage Ram, who had to beg-off af­ter claim­ing that May May “nev­er had a man to ever do that to me, aye ah yie doo doo dar­ling, yuh mak­ing pores raise up.” At the mo­ment of truth, though, he was over­whelmed at Clax­ton Bay; he re­sort­ed to plead­ing: “keep de rum when yuh reach home give yuh man some…”

How to be­gin to as­sess Spar­row’s ca­lyp­so in­ter­ac­tion per­sona with women in the al­ways con­tentious as­pects of such re­la­tion­ships. The first, im­me­di­ate con­clu­sion, that, de­ter­mined by many, is that he ex­ploit­ed women and pro­mot­ed sex­u­al promis­cu­ity. Where is the re­al Spar­row in all of this?

“Spar­row’s treat­ment of women in his ca­lyp­soes is based on the pre­vail­ing at­ti­tudes of the spe­cif­ic times,” says Ca­lyp­so re­searcher/archivist and play­wright, Zeno Obi Con­stance. He notes that his “naughty Anan­si char­ac­ter of the 1960s gave way to a milder voice in the 1970s, even though the woman as con­quest nev­er dis­ap­peared.”

“The Mask of the Sex­u­al Rebel, as Spar­row faced in­tense pub­lic crit­i­cism and moral polic­ing for his more provoca­tive or ‘phal­lic’ songs, he de­lib­er­ate­ly leaned in­to the role of the sex­u­al rebel, a vi­o­la­tor of taboos, and a mock­er of re­spectable, bour­geois so­ci­ety,” Pro­fes­sor Gor­don Rohlehr.

Fur­ther, Prof Rohlehr, un­der the head­ing of the “De­lin­eation of the Pa­tri­ar­chal Mind­set: Re­gard­ing songs such as “Man Like to Feel” (1964), ob­served that Spar­row’s lyrics pro­vid­ed a sharp, un­var­nished look in­to the Trinida­di­an and Caribbean pa­tri­ar­chal mind­set.

I add, not in op­po­si­tion to Zeno and Rohlehr, that Spar­row dis­played a sharp mind for fi­nan­cial ad­vance­ment through­out his ca­reer. He un­der­stood the mar­ket ap­petite for raunchy, saucy, rib­ald dit­ties with him­self in the role of the Vil­lage Ram: “is sex bare they want to hear” (Chalk­dust). Spar­row, with a dis­po­si­tion “to gih she what she want,” pro­vid­ed the lyrics, melody and his sexy danc­ing to the con­sumers of his mu­sic.

In an in­ter­view I did with Spar­row, ac­com­pa­nied by my se­nior Win­ston May­nard, on Ra­dio 104fm, in which I made known to him my pref­er­ence for the orig­i­nal record­ings of hits such as “Ten to One Is Mur­der” com­pared to the re-record­ings with up-tem­po So­ca mu­sic, he said, “that’s fine”; how­ev­er, the par­ty­go­ers want­ed the dri­ving so­ca of the day, and that for him made fi­nan­cial sense. That un­der­lines his play­ing to the mar­ket; he was al­so a busi­ness­man.

Back even be­fore Jean and Di­nah, he un­der­stood some­thing of the val­ue of mar­ket­ing when he took the jin­gle, the melody of which he turned in­to the ca­lyp­so which put him on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage, to Sal­va­tori and Scott (“If yuh see this big ma­co build­ing, it high­er than ah moun­tain”) to sell to the busi­ness­man.

The Mighty Spar­row has left be­hind mu­sic for gen­er­a­tions, and for con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion and analy­sis, but most of all for our con­tin­ued en­joy­ment, un­der­stand­ing of self, and for guid­ance.

Rest well, Slinger Fran­cis­co, Hon. PhD, Doc­tor of Let­ters, UWI, St Au­gus­tine.

Tony Rakhal-Fras­er, free­lance jour­nal­ist, for­mer re­porter/cur­rent af­fairs pro­gramme pro­duc­er, and news di­rec­tor at TTT, pro­gramme pro­duc­er, cur­rent af­fairs di­rec­tor at Ra­dio Trinidad, for­mer cor­re­spon­dent for the BBC Caribbean Ser­vice, writer for the As­so­ci­at­ed Press, grad­u­ate of UWI, CARI­MAC, Mona in Mass Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, his­to­ry, pol­i­tics, eco­nom­ics, and from the In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions, UWI, St Au­gus­tine.