For more than half a century, Mr Slinger Francisco, the legendary Calypsonian who became known to the world as Mighty Sparrow, had to contend with intermittent rumours of his death.
When the rumour first surfaced in 1970, Sparrow did what Sparrow did best — turned it into music. With characteristic wit and irreverence, he embraced the gossip in his song Sparrow Dead, singing of whispered claims that he had cancer, yellow fever, a bladder ailment, and even “a double dose of leukaemia”, before a newspaper boy dramatically cried: “Extra! Read all about it!”
