<img src="https://img.lemde.fr/2023/08/09/0/0/2592/1936/664/0/75/0/6e80baf_1691586375677-aurimages-cinema-aurimages-0024773-0007.jpg" srcset=" https://img.lemde.fr/2023/08/09/0/0/2592/1936/556/0/75/0/6e80baf_1691586375677-aurimages-cinema-aurimages-0024773-0007.jpg 556w, https://img.lemde.fr/2023/08/09/0/0/2592/1936/600/0/75/0/6e80baf_1691586375677-aurimages-cinema-aurimages-0024773-0007.jpg 600w, https://img.lemde.fr/2023/08/09/0/0/2592/1936/664/0/75/0/6e80baf_1691586375677-aurimages-cinema-aurimages-0024773-0007.jpg 664w, https://img.lemde.fr/2023/08/09/0/0/2592/1936/700/0/75/0/6e80baf_1691586375677-aurimages-cinema-aurimages-0024773-0007.jpg 700w, https://img.lemde.fr/2023/08/09/0/0/2592/1936/800/0/75/0/6e80baf_1691586375677-aurimages-cinema-aurimages-0024773-0007.jpg 800w" sizes="(min-width: 1024px) 556px, 100vw" alt="Sixto Rodriguez in the documentary " searching="" for="" sugar="" man"="" by="" malik="" bendjelloul="" (2012)."="" width="100%" height="auto">
After a short musical career out of the spotlight from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s, the documentary film Searching for Sugar Man, by Swedish director Malik Bendjelloul (1977-2014) brought him into the spotlight. The film was presented at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2012. Singer, guitarist and songwriter Sixto Rodriguez died on Tuesday, August 8, at the age of 81. His website Sugarman.org announced his death without any further details.
By the time the film started being shown at film festivals and receiving several awards including the Oscar for Best Documentary Film, Rodriguez had already been rediscovered by a core group of fans. This was thanks to the careful re-release of his two albums Cold Fact (1970) and Coming From Reality (1971) by the American record company Light in the Attic Records in 2008 and 2009. He was the subject of a number of articles and gave a few concerts in the USA. In France, he performed at the pioneering Transmusicales de Rennes festival in December 2009. We have a slightly distant personal memory of the performance that left us a little skeptical.
Born on July 10, 1942, in Detroit, Michigan, Sixto Diaz Rodriguez was raised in a working-class environment. His father arrived from Mexico in the 1920s to work in the city’s car factories and his mother was Native American. She died when Rodriguez was 3. He learned a few guitar chords, started singing around the age of 20, and survived by doing odd jobs. Vision problems forced him to wear dark glasses at an early age. In 1967, he recorded his first 45-rpm single, a little folk with an organ background.
He continued to play in clubs, and in the summer of 1969 recorded a dozen songs in the studio. These songs would be on his first album, Cold Fact, released in March 1970 by the Sussex record company. The album’s sleeve shows only his last name, Rodriguez. The album begins with the song Sugar Man, probably his best-known song today. He has a soft voice with a slight drawl and a nasal quality reminiscent of Bob Dylan. He has an expressive energy too, at times, like Richie Havens (one of the heroes of Woodstock with his interpretation of Freedom). There are some slightly psychedelic arrangements in places, strings and wind instruments, with Mike Theodore and Dennis Coffey as producers, who regularly work for the soul label Motown Records.
The album went unnoticed. As did the next one, Coming From Reality, recorded in London at the end of 1970 and released in November 1971, still under Rodriguez’s name and on the Sussex label. A little more folk, with a touch of rock and string. It includes a dreamy, slightly pop ballad, To Whom It May Concern, which had all the makings of a hit. But it wasn’t.
You have 34.41% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.