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

[robertoart]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oYwMBHI39g

[robertoart]

Wow! Had no idea about this film (since I see, maybe, a movie or two a year).

Is this supposed to be about Sixto's life?

Classic album:

Yes, it's just screening in the US now I believe. It seems the director has made the doco around the theme of Rodriguez's obscurity in the US, and that he (Rodriguez) was unaware of his own popularity in South Africa and Australia. I haven't seen the doco, so they have maybe taken some creative licence with the story a bit - for a wider audience. But Rodriguez was very popular in Australia in the Seventies (I was just a kid but knew of his music). He toured here then a few times I think. The cd re-issues from about ten years ago made him popular in Australia again. I never tire of hearing these songs.

Edited August 15, 2012 by freelancer

[AllenLowe]

I knew him as Shapiro.

[robertoart]

I knew him as Shapiro.

And he always called you Al.

I believe he changed his name from Rappaport

Edited August 15, 2012 by freelancer

[Adam]

The documentary is "Searching for Sugar Man." played in Los Angeles a week or two ago, and I missed it, alas. Hope to catch it somehow soon.

[Dave James]

I had never heard of him until the Sugar Man film began to generate some buzz. I downloaded his two early '70's albums the other day. I would highly recommend both of them. There's a Dylan-esque quality to his songs and his style. Makes me wonder if that's part of the reason he never caught on. He strikes me as unusually talented. He has a very interesting voice and his songs radiate some grit and substance. I'm planning to see the movie. His is definitely one of the better "better late than never" stories I've yet to come across.

Edited August 15, 2012 by Dave James

[mjzee]

I saw the first album when it came out (was it on a Buddah label?), but never heard it and it sank without a trace soon after. There were tons of ignorable albums released in those days. I'm amazed at what gets reissued on CD...hard to believe anyone heard them when they first came out.

[jazztrain]

My wife, who is originally from South Africa, had spoken about him to me in the past. We saw the trailer for the film a few weeks ago, and it's now on our "must see" list.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oYwMBHI39g

[robertoart]

Heard Rodriguez was featured on 60 Minutes last night.

Anyone else seen the documentary yet. Rostasi?

I saw it last night. Would be interesting to hear opinions.

The producer tried to frame Motown's Clarence Avant as the potential source of Rodriguez's missing South African Apartheid era royalties.

As well as overlooking his substantial Aus/NZ success - for the sake of the sensationalist narrative I guess.

I thought when it focussed on Rodriguez himself, and his family and music- it was very moving.

Edited October 8, 2012 by freelancer

[ValerieB]

Heard Rodriguez was featured on 60 Minutes last night.

Anyone else seen the documentary yet. Rostasi?

I saw it last night. Would be interesting to hear opinions.

The producer tried to frame Motown's Clarence Avant as the potential source of Rodriguez's missing South African Apartheid era royalties.

As well as overlooking his substantial Aus/NZ success - for the sake of the sensationalist narrative I guess.

I thought when it focussed on Rodriguez himself, and his family and music- it was very moving.

i was surprised that 60 Minutes mentioned nothing about Avant and the missing royalties.

[Noj]

I first heard his song "Sugar Man" on a David Holmes compilation a few years back, and ordered the album Cold Fact to hear more. Good stuff.

[robertoart]

Well. I think you'll all enjoy the doco.

Just gotta put up with those bloody South Africans

Please report back with opinions if anyone feels so inclined

The doco's getting a good run over here at one of our independent inner city cinemas.

I expect it's attracting good audiences through a combination of young-interested cinema goers, and Rodriguez's significant Aus/NZ baby boomer fan base.

I got to see the US 60 Minutes profile, which was also very moving. It showed how frail and fragile Rodriguez is at 70, in ways the documentary possibly didn't.

Edited October 10, 2012 by freelancer

[Christiern]

Nobody has mentioned another amazing fact, namely that the documentary was made on an iPhone! As we say in Denmark, a naked woman soon learns how to spin—the filmmaker, who is from Sweden, couldn't afford professional cameras.

[six string]

A local record store owner told me he had recently got an original lp of his for sale but he wanted over $50 for it so I told him I'd pass since I haven't heard any of his music yet outside of a couple of video bits. I'd like to see the movie sometime.

[ValerieB]

Heard Rodriguez was featured on 60 Minutes last night.

Anyone else seen the documentary yet. Rostasi?

I saw it last night. Would be interesting to hear opinions.

The producer tried to frame Motown's Clarence Avant as the potential source of Rodriguez's missing South African Apartheid era royalties.

As well as overlooking his substantial Aus/NZ success - for the sake of the sensationalist narrative I guess.

I thought when it focussed on Rodriguez himself, and his family and music- it was very moving.

i was surprised that 60 Minutes mentioned nothing about Avant and the missing royalties.

i don't believe the above is a fair statement. he asked the obvious questions of Clarence, who was extremely rude and uncooperative.

[robertoart]

Heard Rodriguez was featured on 60 Minutes last night.

Anyone else seen the documentary yet. Rostasi?

I saw it last night. Would be interesting to hear opinions.

The producer tried to frame Motown's Clarence Avant as the potential source of Rodriguez's missing South African Apartheid era royalties.

As well as overlooking his substantial Aus/NZ success - for the sake of the sensationalist narrative I guess.

I thought when it focussed on Rodriguez himself, and his family and music- it was very moving.

i was surprised that 60 Minutes mentioned nothing about Avant and the missing royalties.

i don't believe the above is a fair statement. he asked the obvious questions of Clarence, who was extremely rude and uncooperative.

Yes, that is true. Clarence Avant (as far as what was shown), did nothing to clarify the matter, whether he had anything to hide or not. I would add though, that there seemed to be a sub-text that South Africa took royalties which made the way to the US but not to Rodriguez. This may or may not be true. So the question remains, did the initial releases sell in South Africa - or were the subsequent South African releases 'bootlegs' or official contractual re-issues - with a money chain back to Rodriguez? And all this in the context of Apartheid era South Africa. However, perhaps the film-maker was in possession of facts or accusations that we as viewers were not able to be made aware of. What would be interesting, is to know what happened in Australia. The albums would have made a fair amount of money out here, and were probably being re-pressed to meet a steady ongoing demand right through the Seventies, and Rodriguez was touring here then, so it wasn't as if he was the invisible man. So if those Royalties got back to Rodriguez, it would raise a question mark as to why the South African money didn't.

[robertoart]

And the winner is...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4hrjGgbGQY

Ben Affleck - where is my volume

Edited February 25, 2013 by freelancer

[fasstrack]

I saw the documentary when it played NY this past autumn. I recommend it. It's a heartwarming story and Rodriguez comes across as a humble, unaffected guy. In a recent Time magazine interview he seemed exactly the same: like he could care less about fame. Still living in the same spare house in Detroit and probably doing construction jobs. The music wasn't my thing exactly, but I went for the story---and I dug where his songs were coming from politically. It's anyone's guess why they didn't resonate in the US back then. Overcrowded market, I suspect.

Maybe with the accolades over the film he will at least collect past due royalties now.

[Neal Pomea]

I think his voice sounds more like Donovan than Dylan, in Donovan's Dylan-style early days before Sunshine Superman.

[medjuck]

It's worth watching/listening to the commercially released DVD just for the commentary track. In the film Rodriguez seems a bit of an idiot savant but in the commentary you realize that he is just laconic and really smart. The director keeps trying to put words in his month and Rodriguez doesn't let him.

[fasstrack]

It's worth watching/listening to the commercially released DVD just for the commentary track. In the film Rodriguez seems a bit of an idiot savant but in the commentary you realize that he is just laconic and really smart. The director keeps trying to put words in his month and Rodriguez doesn't let him.

Interesting. He didn't seem an idiot savant to me at all in the film, just sort of pristine and unmoved by all the fuss. He had gotten over it (lack of commercial success, etc.) years ago and seemed happy with his working-class life and the family he'd raised.

[John L]

I think his voice sounds more like Donovan than Dylan, in Donovan's Dylan-style early days before Sunshine Superman.

That was my thought the first time that I heard him.

[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.