Sixto Rodriguez, a Detroit born folk musician, became an international sensation decades after his music had seemingly faded into obscurity, regarded as one of the greatest comebacks in music history was made into a documentary called ‘Searching for Sugar Man’ in 2012
I remember my brother giving me some tapes for my birthday and the Sugar Man album was one of the tapes as well as Pink Floyd and a Jim Croce, at the time I thought what’s this shit, I look back at it now as one of the best presents I ever received.
Sixto born in 1942 grew up in a working-class family in a rough Detroit neighbourhood. He worked various jobs while pursuing his passion for music, Drawing inspiration from the streets where he lived, and growing up in Detroit as a Mexican American in the late 1960s and early 70s, Rodriguez recorded 2 albums Cold Fact (1970) and coming from reality (1971).
His music was a blend of folk, rock and socially conscious lyrics. The lyrics painted a vivid picture of urban decay inequality, and personal despair, critiques often compared him to Bob Dylan for his thought-provoking songs, despite critical acclaim, his albums barely sold in the United States and quickly faded into obscurity.
Soon after this Rodriguez quit music and returned to his everyday life working various manual labour jobs in Detroit completely unaware of the impact his music was having on the other side of the world, ( I was listening to His album Cold Fact as a 10-year-old from Australia and this guy didn’t even know he had worldwide acclaim.
Rodriguez was huge in South Africa while being practically unknown in the US, they say his music became the soundtrack of a generation in South Africa in the 1970s, during the height of apartheid, boot leg copies of ‘Cold Fact’ made their way to the country, where his songs about rebellion, freedom, and anti-establishment sentiment resonated deeply with young South Africans.
For decades rumours resonated about what actually happened to Rodriguez, some people had thought he had died with rumours of an onstage suicide running rampant, apparently he was more popular in South Africa than Elvis Presley or the Rolling Stones.
In the 1990s two South Africans set out to uncover the truth about Rodriguez’s fate. Their quest led them to Detroit, where they discovered Rodrigues was not only alive but completely unaware of his fame in South Africa.
In 1998 Rodriguez did a tour of South Africa, What followed was nothing short of extraordinary, The man who had long given up his dreams of stardom was greeted with sold out concerts and treated like a folk hero, It would have been a completely life changing moment.
Regards
Patrick. M
Dude! That is a great story! Gave me goosebumps! We can only see and know what our radios and charts are doing and to hear that he was such an inspiration to so many in South Africa is really cool. My husband was a fan of an unknown musician named Ted Hawkins. Same kinda story.