OK hipsters, be honest. Who amongst you knew of Rodriguez

[Al in NYC]

Years and years ago I worked at Detroit City Council as a neighborhood liason. When I saw the documentary and heard his voice again it suddenly came back to me that I had talked to him a few times back then.

Sixto Rodriguez was one of several people who called us regularly to discuss/complain about a range of issues - people with widely varying degrees of lucidity. Sixto would drone on slowly in that voice of his about one problem or another and his ideas to address them. If you bore with him though, after a while it would occur to the listenter that he actually had some serious awareness of the issues he was discussing, and that he was much smarter and made much more sense than our usual run of "cranks." However, I think his frustration with being barely tolerated and hardly listened to, with being treated as an outsider and a bit of a nut, with the practical practice of municipal politics and the serving of powerful constituencies, and with the political marginalization of Detroit's Hispanic community, finally boiled over and caused him to try to run for office himself. But Detroit's at-large system of electing its City Council meant that he, or any other Hispanic candidate from the southwest side, really had no chance at all.

I do remember well his several runs for public office. His odd hand-written campaign signs could be seen all over the southwest side of Detroit back then. It was reasonably well-known to people in the Detroit political community then that he had once been some sort of "protest" singer, but he was generally thought of (if he was thought of at all) as just one of the large number of rather generic Jose Feliciano knock-off Hispanic folksingers that were playing all over and recording back then. It's hard to remember now just how popular Feliciano was in the U.S. in the late '60s (particularly in Detroit), but my guess is that Feliciano was probably largely unknown in South Africa, Australia, etc., or at least not as huge, which may have made Rodriguez stand out theere a little more than he did here.

Anyway, it is only on listening to his recordings many years later, after the documentary, that I ever actually heard Rodriguez sing. His recorded work is impressive, but it sounds like by 1970 it may have been about a year or two out of step (in either direction) with the fast-moving U.S. pop music scene back then. And his individuality stands out now in a way it might not have in the flood of singer-songwriters 40+ years ago.

Edited February 25, 2013 by Al in NYC

[clifford_thornton]

Hey JC Al, didn't realize you were on this board. Interesting story. I have yet to see the doc, but his music is pretty outstanding.

[ATR]

The movie introduced the idea that his royalties had been stolen but didn't follow up on it. Too good to be true story that I don't think could happen in the hyper connected world we live in now. Interesting that his music connected with the disaffected young and mostly caucasian anti-apartheid people of South Africa at about the same time that people like Abdullah Ibrahim, Chris McGregor, Harry Miller, Louis Moholo, Dudu, and all the rest of them were leaving. I don't have any of his albums but from what I heard it's easy to believe he got lost in the shuffle. A lot of stuff did and still does.

[mjzee]

"Searching For Sugarman" Director Dies At 36 - NY Post

[romualdo]

wow!! what a shock

I only viewed the movie last week (had known about it for some time though) & was in tears by the end of it

As has been previously mentioned he was quite popular here in Australia (probably not as big as SA) - I think he might have charted

both of his LPs sold well in Australia, even into the 80s

Actually, this last weekend I was with a group of friends & the movie was discussed - two of the group (of 8) had owned the album (Cold Fact)

[Hardbopjazz]

I've only learnt about him after hearing an NPR program talking about him.