RIP

• 03:44:21 pm on June 2, 2009 | # | 1
  

  THE MIGHTY SPARROW — HOT & SWEET [1974]

  In the early-mid 70s, the same time he made the awesome, Trinidadian calypso-inspired ”Discover America” album, Van Dyke Parks had become completely immersed in calypso music and culture.  This led to him producing and arranging albums for a few Trinidadian artists he loved.  There are a bunch of records that came out of that, and I’ve only heard two or three, this being one of them.

  Parks and Mighty Sparrow (which is an awesome name, but his birth name might be even better: Slinger Francisco), supposedly cut this album in a single evening during a hurricane in Trinidad.  Parks then tinkered with it for a few months and put it out on Warner.  It’s a frenetic, super-happy calypso album with strange, surprisingly smart lyrics (first line:  “I hear he had cancer/I hear he have Yellow Fever/Something in his bladder/and a double-dose of Leukemia”), and it’s a damn near perfect summer record.  The jam.

  

   

Comments

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  Aquarium Drunkard » Van Dyke Parks :: Song Cycle/Discover America 5:43 pm on December 17, 2009 | #

  [...] interested in exploring more calypso through this angle might investigate Mighty Sparrow’s Hot and Sweet, an album produced by Van Dyke Parks in 1974). Wooden marimbas, steel drums, island rhythms, and [...]

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