NEW YORK, United States (CMC) – The Calypso King of the World, Slinger Francisco, popularly known as the Mighty Sparrow, continues to get better, as he convalesces in a rehabilitation facility here.

According to the Brooklyn-based Trinidad and Tobago Weekly, Sparrow took a break from therapy over the Christmas holiday, at the High Land Health Care Center in Queens, New York, and “spoke for a long time and even sang”.

Sparrow has been hospitalised for the past three months after going into a coma on September 22.

“Tell my fans and the people of T&T they better watch out because Sparrow is coming to town,” Trinidad and Tobago Weekly quoted him as saying. “And I’m coming out dancing, people think it will be Santa; but, when they look closely, they will see it is Sparrow,” he added.

“They love my singing,” continued Sparrow about the nurses and doctors at the rehabilitation centre.

He thanked God for sparing his life, adding that, when he was in a coma, “many people didn’t think I’d be here right now”.

He said he is “making steady progress and coming along quite well”.

“The expenses for my treatment have been exorbitant, but people have begun calling for me to perform at shows before and after Carnival in different parts of the States,” Sparrow said.

The “Mighty Sparrow”, 78, has been performing for more than four decades and has been having health challenges for the past three years.

These include undergoing surgery in 2010 to treat a right inguinal hernia that had caused him to cut short performances in Trinidad and Tobago and in the United States because of excruciating pain while on stage.