ABOUT THIS ITEM

Strut present a brand new retrospective of one of the Caribbean’s most towering musical figures, Mighty Sparrow. During a career of over 40 years, Sparrow has been an unmatchable figure in the world of calypso and a constant backdrop to Caribbean life, recording over 300 albums and winning 11 Calypso Monarch and eight Road March titles at the annual Trinidad Carnival during one of the most competitive times in its history.

This new collection hones in on Sparrow’s most creative years as he effortlessly surfed musical styles from calypso party jams to hard-hitting boogaloo and soul. By the early 60s he had become a confident political commentator, tackling subjects as varied as domestic economic hardship (‘Ah Diggin’ Horrors’), slavery (‘The Slave’) and the Cuban missile crisis (‘Kennedy And Kruschev’). Other tracks serve as a vital reference point for today’s music. On ‘Picong Duel’, we hear Sparrow and fellow calypso legend, Lord Melody, trade insults, a direct forerunner to later mic battles in hip hop culture. Elsewhere, Sparrow just plain rocks the party (‘Calypso Boogaloo’, ‘Jook For Jook’) and turns in the odd choice cover – we get his lilting version of Otis Redding’s ‘Try A Little Tenderness’ with Byron Lee.

The album also documents Sparrow’s fearsome live reputation with two firing tracks from a late 60s gig at the Barbados Hilton and excerpts from a 70s concert in Brooklyn featuring Sparrow’s dynamite backing band, The Troubadours, at the peak of their game. This is a long overdue retrospective placing Sparrow in his rightful position as a true Caribbean great, a cultural and social icon on a par with Fela Kuti in Nigeria or Miriam Makeba in South Africa.