Rodriguez at the Crofoot Ballroom in Pontiac in 2012.
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Remembering Rodriguez: One of the strangest tales in rock-and-roll

By Jim Bloch

Jim Bloch

 

In case you missed it, the extraordinary Detroit musician Sixto Rodriguez died Aug. 8 at the age of 81; he had a stroke in February.

Rodriguez’s first two commercial albums, “Cold Fact” in 1970 and “Coming From Reality” in 1971, sold about six copies, according to the facetious estimate of the owner of the long defunct Sussex Records. Motown guitarist Dennis Coffey, who still plays around the city, produced “Cold Fact.”

In the wake of the failure of both albums, Rodriguez drifted from under-lighted celebrity into near-total obscurity, doing hard labor, construction jobs, yard work and piecing together a life in a hardscrabble Detroit.

No big deal there. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland has a section enshrining one-hit wonders. A No-Hit Wonders exhibit would be unimaginably larger. The vast majority of musicians don’t even get to cut two albums before answering a help wanted ad at Wal-Mart or Wendy’s in search of a regular paycheck.

But something funny happened on Rodriquez’s long journey to the end of night. Unbeknownst to him, he had became a giant star in South Africa, his gritty lyrics and anti-establishment songs inspiring two generations of young white liberals opposed to Apartheid and the conservative strictures of an oppressive society.

Some estimates put his record sales in that country, one-seventh the size of the U.S., at 500,000. Counting bootleg tapes and albums, that figure would probably double. Rodriguez was bigger than the Rolling Stones in the land of giraffes, diamonds and government-enforced racism. He never saw a penny in royalties and never had an inkling of his transatlantic fame.

In the pre-internet 1970s and 1980s, South African fans could not find out anything about their musical hero. Soon, stories of a tragic end to Rodriguez swept the tight-knit community of white progressives: The troubled singer had killed himself on stage. One rumor had him blowing a hole in his head with a pistol. Another had him lighting himself on fire like a Mexican-American version of the famous Buddhist protester in South Vietnam.

That’s how the story would have ended had it not been for a South African fan and a music journalist intent on discovering the truth about Rodriguez. After years of following leads down dead-end alleys, the pair had a breakthrough. With the internet now linking people more densely than ever, they heard from Rodriguez’s daughter. Her father wasn’t dead. He was alive and well in Detroit.

The discovery that one of the biggest rock stars in South African history was living in the Motor City led to Rodriguez playing a half-dozen sold-out concerts in South Africa in 1999, much to the shock of Rodriguez’s daughters and his calloused coworkers in Detroit.

For his thousands of fans, the experience was akin to seeing John Lennon, Janice Joplin or Jimi Hendrix live onstage again.

Rodriguez, while grateful his late-life success, exhibited the same philosophical hyper-cool – he studied philosophy at Wayne State – that had guided his whole life.

 

Searching for Sugar Man

His first U.S. breakthrough came in 2012 in the wake of the release of “Searching for Sugar Man,” the moving, stunning documentary directed by Malik Bendjelloul. The movie won the Academy Award for Best Documentary in February 2013.

It propelled Rodriguez into the musical near-stratosphere 42 years after his last album. I saw him Nov. 2, 2012 at the Crofoot Ballroom in Pontiac, where he played a sold-out show before a 1,000 fans.

Rodriguez was as cool as a windshield on a deep autumn night.

“I thought of you when I wrote ‘I Think of You,’” he said, not needing to add that he penned the tune in 1970.

After playing “Sugar Man,” obviously about a drug dealer, he said: “Sugar Man is a descriptive song, not a prescriptive song. Get hugs. Stay off drugs.”

In between songs that were now hits thanks to the documentary – “The Establishment Blues,” “I Wonder,” “Rich Folks Hoax” – he entertained the appreciative audience with dry jokes and plenty of street philosophy.

“I used to love Detroit,” he said. “Then I liked Detroit. Now I understand Detroit.”

He played solo, just his acoustic guitar and his sweet voice, stripped of the violins and full band that accompanied him on his two albums and an appearance on David Letterman early in the fall of 2012.

Always modest, Rodriguez suggested that the 25-piece orchestra that backed him on a recent “60 Minutes” segment “would have been powerful without me.”

He worked his guitar in a funky, stuttering, syncopated style that echoed Dylan, interwove the psychedelic counter-culture of the late ‘60s and prefigured the funk-folk of Ani DiFranco.

He answered shouts of love from fans who had too many Pabst Blue Ribbons with gentle retorts. “I love you, too – drive safely.”

“You perceive, but you are also perceived.”

“A clear conscience may be the result of a poor memory.”

His politics were as clear as the cold night.

“My mother and my father are both Mexican,” he said, noting that Michigan Indians traded with the Aztecs to obtain obsidian. “I didn’t come here on no ship.”

He encouraged people to seek out “Searching for Sugar Man” and watch it.

“I did my own stunts in the movie,” Rodriquez said.

He was right. He pulled off what might be the greatest musical stunt of the last half-century.

 

Jim Bloch is a freelance writer based in St. Clair, Michigan. Contact him at bloch.jim@gmail.com.

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