Calypso and soca music’s loveable rogue, The Mighty Sparrow, died this week, aged 91, surrounded by family in New York.

His death came after a “brief illness”, the statement said without disclosing any other details.

Sparrow, who got his breakthrough in calypso music with his 1956 hit song Jean and Dinah (Yankee Gone), died peacefully surrounded by his family in New York, his family said in a statement.

In 1956, aged 20, Sparrow made a breathtaking appearance in the calypso monarch competition, where he was mistakenly introduced on stage as Lord Melody — his idol.

He jokingly began to sing a Melody tune before launching into his new composition, Jean and Dinah.

A tongue-in-cheek celebration of the recent withdrawal of US military — it turns on the narrator’s hopes that Trinidadian women would return their affections to local men.

On the strength of it, he won that year’s Calypso Monarch title, the ultimate achievement for a calypsonian.

Sparrow won Carnival Road March competition eight times, Calypso King/Monarch eight times, and won the Calypso King of Kings title twice.

Trinidad & Tobago granted him the country’s highest honour in 2014, the Order of the Republic of Trinidad & Tobago, and the following year was conferred with the Order of the British Empire, by Queen Elizabeth II. Citizens from the monarch’s realms, like Grenada, can be nominated in the British honours lists.

Sparrow had a long association with Bermuda. Two of his songs were about Bermuda: Bermuda Girl and Bermuda Jenny, recorded in 2010.

In 1964, he had a two-week residency at The 40 Thieves nightclub. Several more visits and concert followed over the decades, culminating in a massive showdown with the Montserratian soca star Arrow in the Victualling Yard, Ireland Island North, the night before Cup Match in 1994.

Arrow was riding high here with his Jam Bermuda hit.

For his review, Roger Crombie, writing for The Royal Gazette’s sister newspaper, Mid-Ocean News, described The Mighty Sparrow on stage as “resplendent in a white tuxedo-style shirt and pants with a woven, African-influenced cummerbund and bright red braces worn heartily askew”.

Referencing Charles Dickens’s pickpocket character from Oliver Twist, Crombie concluded: “Sparrow is the Artful Dodger of soca music. He delivered his material with a cunning, knowing shrug and a solid sound driven by a four-hornspower engine.

“His performance was as reliable and professional as so organised an approach might suggest. And then, for my money, Arrow blew him clear off the stage.”

Before the show, Sparrow told Crombie: “Like a lot of singers, I guess, my first involvement with music was through the Church. I was a choir boy in the local Catholic church.

He credited the harmonics of the Gregorian chants and plainsongs in Latin with affecting the intensity of his compositions later in life.

“I used to listen to the doo-wop quartets, the American street singers. I also liked pop tunes by such people as Nat King Cole and Frankie Laine, jazz from Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn, and I was really taken with the early calypso singers like Lord Melody, the Mighty Spoiler, and Lord Kitchener.”

Sparrow’s last Bermuda concert in 2005 was marred by incidents of bottling and liquids being thrown by a youthful, soca-oriented crowd, unappreciative of the older style’s storytelling.

Born Slinger Francisco in the coastal town of Grand Roy, Grenada, in July 1935, his parents moved him to Trinidad & Tobago in 1937.

He attended at Port of Spain’s Newtown Catholic boys’ school.

Sparrow recorded hundreds of songs in a career that spanned six decades, including iconic calypso and soca songs: Both of Them, Congo Man, Mr Walker, Saltfish, The Lizard, Arthur Prysock’s Only A Fool Breaks His Own Heart.

“Birdie”, as he was also affectionately known, did of course carry on the party tradition. He could also produce bitingly topical compositions and he bravely dared excoriate politicians.

They included Model Nation, celebrating independence in 1962, Martin Luther King For President, and Kennedy and Kruschev, referencing the US and Soviet leaders during the height of the Cold War.

Sparrow took calypso around the world, including at New York City’s Madison Square Garden.

“He was an institution in the entertainment industry, well admired for his skill and finesse as a singer, songwriter and mentor; beloved by many,” Sparrow’s family said.

“Through his music, his wit and his unmatched contribution to culture, he carried the spirit and stories of our people across the world,” said Kamla Persad Bissessar, the country’s prime minister. “For decades, Sparrow has been part of the soundtrack of Trinidad & Tobago. His music made us laugh, made us think and made us proud of who we are.”

His stature was reflected by leaders of Jamaica, Barbados and Dominica, among others, taking time to pay tribute.

“His songs became part of the soundtrack of Caribbean life and culture, beloved by generations of Jamaicans and people across the region,” said Jamaican prime minister Andrew Holness. “I extend my condolences to his family, the people of Trinidad & Tobago and the people of Grenada, where he was born.”

Throughout his career, Francisco’s goal was to advance the calypso art form, according to Trinidadian cultural historian and author Rudolph Ottley.

“The Mighty Sparrow was the supreme entertainer, a cultural revolutionary and one of the world’s greatest Calypsonians,” Dr Ottley told the Associated Press.

In 2014, the Toronto International Film Festival screening of the documentary The Glamour Boyz Again: The Mighty Sparrow and Lord Superior on the Hilton Rooftop. Sparrow had survived a diabetic coma the previous year.

In 1987, The University of The West Indies conferred an honorary Doctor of Letters on Francisco.

In Nigeria, Sparrow was made honorary chief of the Yorubas as Chief Omowale of Ikoyi.

The Mighty Sparrow will be remembered as “a defining voice of our culture, a master storyteller and a towering figure whose music helped carry calypso to the world,” the Trinbago Unified Calypsonians’ Organisation said in a statement.

Writing in 2021 on five pieces of music that influenced him, Canadian conductor and CBC Centrestage host Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser included Jean and Dinah.

“In this song, The Mighty Sparrow deals with, among other things, the economic impact of the closure of American military bases in Trinidad. But you might be too busy dancing to notice,” said Bartholomew-Poyser.

“I am grateful this music informed my childhood,” said the conductor, born to Trinidadian and Jamaican parents.