Searching for Sugar Man Storyville

This film contains some strong language

MUSIC: "Sugar Man" by Rodriguez

# Sugar Man, won't you hurry?

# Cos I'm tired of these scenes

# For a blue coin won't you bring back

# All those colours to my dreams?

# Silver magic ships, you carry

# Jumpers, coke, sweet Mary Jane

# Sugar Man... #

I got my nickname from this song.

When I was in the Army they used to mispronounce Segerman as Sugar Man.

And then they just started calling me Sugar

and that became my nickname.

It's 40 years

since this LP called Cold Fact by Rodriguez was released.

And in South Africa it was a very popular album.

It was one of the biggest albums of the day.

But the thing was, we didn't know who this guy was.

All our other rock stars, we had all the information we needed.

But this guy? There was nothing.

And then we found out that he had committed suicide.

He set himself alight on stage

and burnt to death in front of the audience.

It was the most incredible thing. It wasn't just a suicide.

It was probably the most grotesque suicide in rock history.

THUNDER CRASHES

The first time that I remember actually recognising him

is Mike Theodore called me on the phone one day and said,

"I have this artist I want you to come see with me.

"This guy's name is Rodriguez,

"he's working down by the Detroit River.

"There's a bar down there,

"down by the wharf riverside district.

"Let's go see him tonight. I think you'll really like him."

So that night, I remember, we pull up...

away in this kinda isolated part of Detroit

right on the side of the Detroit River,

and you could see the mist in the air

coming off the river. We could feel it.

And we went inside there and, as we walked in the door,

we could hear behind us the sound of the freighters

as they're going down the river,

and so it's like you're walking out of a Sherlock Holmes novel.

You walk out of the mist and you go into this place,

and inside the place it's all full of smoke,

so there's a mist inside there.

Boom, hey, you know, it's a wall of smoke.

Beer all over the place. Peanut shells. It was just a mess.

And then you hear this strumming sound.

Strumming and batting the guitar.

HE MIMICS GUITAR

And then you hear this voice.

Strange voice.

Finally, we walked through the smoke and I looked

and there in the far corner I saw...

I could see the shadow of a man and I couldn't see his face.

I said, "What's the deal?" So we got a little closer.

And you see this guy with his back to you.

So all you see is his back and he's in a corner, singing.

It was an ethereal scene, if you will.

Foggy night, foghorns, smoke so thick you couldn't see through it.

And here's this voice.

Maybe it forced you to listen to the lyrics

cos you couldn't see the guy's face.

That's when we talked to him

and figured we needed to do an album on him.

The only writer that I had heard of, of that time period,

was maybe Bob Dylan, that was writing that well.

MUSIC: "Crucify Your Mind" by Rodriguez

# Was it a huntsman or a player

# That made you pay the cost

# That now assumes relaxed positions

# And prostitutes your loss?

# Were you tortured by your own thirst

# In those pleasures that you seek

# That made you Tom the Curious

# That makes you James the Weak?

# And you claim you got something going

# Something you call unique

# But I've seen your self-pity showing

# As the tears roll down your cheeks. #

He was this wandering spirit around the city.

And, uh, sometimes I might catch him in the corner.

You know, Detroit's got its share of, uh, burned-out, desolate areas

and I would occasionally see him, um,

far away from The Brewery, and I wondered...

and it just added to this mythology of him.

Like, what is he doing? What is he doing? What does he do?

I heard he did a little roofing, some construction work.

Um, I think that's how he got his money at the time.

He just was, you know... And I say this with love,

I say this with respect, but,

I thought he was just a...

just not much more than a kind of a homeless person, you know?

He just was a drifter. He was just... Um...

I didn't know if he HAD a home, you know?

He'd look like maybe he'd go from shelter to shelter or something.

Detroit in the '70s was a hard place.

Well, it's still a hard place.

Lot of decay, lots of ruined houses. Real poverty exists in this city.

And those streets were Rodriguez's natural habitat.

Any time we met him to talk about what we were doing,

he would always meet us on a corner somewhere in his neighbourhood.

Most of the time he wasn't coming to my house.

He'd say, "Meet me on the corner of this street and that street,"

and we would be there.

Uh, Mike and I would get out of our cars and park our cars,

so we'd be standing on the corner,

and we'd look round and he'd be there all of a sudden.

He'd just show up.

We thought he was like the inner city poet.

You know? Putting his poems to music of what he saw.

And it was definitely a very gritty look

at what he saw on the streets of Detroit.

What he saw in his neighbourhood.

Who was walking around the streets.

And the way he presented it in a song,

I thought was very, very interesting.

We were working at Tera-Shirma recording studio.

When he opened up and sang, you went, "Whoa, this guy's got it."

Rodriguez, at that time, had all the machinery in place.

Big names, big money behind it. Circumstances were right.

Why didn't it make it?

That's the big question that today still haunts me.

Did he get enough promotion? Did he do enough performances?

Was he too political?

Was there this or was there that?

Should it have been green instead of orange?

Should it have been a violin instead of an oboe?

On and on you can go.

But the end of the day is, if you listen to the stuff now, you'd say,

"I don't understand it, he's right-on."

I only heard him play once,

and one of the songs that he had on his album, it was called...

..The Sugar Man? Was it Sugar Man?

Is that the name of the song?

Um, I knew that guy, the Sugar Man.

And his name was Volkswagen Cha... Volkswagen Frank!

And he lived right around the corner

and you used to go over to Volkswagen Frank's.

You'd go in and get a little "sugar," if you know what I mean.

# Sugar Man, won't you hurry?

# Cos I'm tired of these scenes

# For a blue coin won't you bring back

# All those colours to my dreams?

# Silver magic ships, you carry

# Jumpers, coke, sweet Mary Jane

# Sugar Man

# Met a false friend

# On a lonely, dusty road

# Lost my heart... #

I got some photos here that I'd like to show you

that I've kept since my days in England with Rodriguez.

Let me see.

Possibly it's in this book, I don't know where.

These are all my photos from when I was acting.

That's me, and that's Jimmy Dean. That was in 1955.

Hang on, I think I've found them. Think they're in here.

Yeah, here they are.

Wow. Good Lord, here they are.

You know, I haven't seen these pictures in almost 35 years.

He's my most memorable artist.

You know, I've produced a lot of great ones, but...

..he's my most memorable.

It's not just a talent.

He's like...

He's like a wise man, a prophet.

He's way beyond just being a musical artist.

And he probably could have done fantastically well

if he had have continued.

When I met him, they said, "Rodriguez, this is Steve Rowland.

"He really likes your album". And Rodriguez said to me,

"Well, did you like Cold Facts?"

I said, "Man, I thought it was absolutely brilliant.

"Absolutely brilliant.

"I can't believe that this album didn't do anything.

"It's just a fantastic album".

So he played me what his next album was on...

In those days you had cassettes.

He had demos of this next album

that he was going to call Coming From Reality.

And I said, "Wow, man, this has got to be a smash.

"These are great songs.

"Little bit...little bit different from the others," I said.

"But great songs".

I said, "And a couple of them were so sad". You know.

There's one in there that's absolutely a killer.

It's one of the saddest songs that...

I'm laughing, but it's one of the saddest songs

that I've ever heard.

And it's a very simple song.

Hang on, I want to play this. Hang on.

OK, listen to these words.

MUSIC: "Cos" by Rodriguez

# Cos I lost my job

# Two weeks before Christmas... #

Oh, man.

# And I talked to Jesus at The Sewer

# And the Pope said it was none of his goddamn business

# While the rain drank champagne

# My Estonian Archangel came and got me wasted

# Cos the sweetest kiss I ever got

# Is the one I've never tasted... #

And it really makes me sad, because...

that was the last song that we recorded.

And that was the last song that Rodriguez ever recorded.

And what makes it even sadder

was the album was released in November of 1971,

and we expected big things. And it did absolutely nothing.

And then, two weeks before Christmas...

..Sussex dropped him off the label.

And the very first line in the song, as if premonition,

was, "I lost my job two weeks before Christmas".

Oh, man. I just think about that.

This guy deserves recognition.

Nobody in America had even heard of him.

Nobody...

Nobody even was interested in listening to him.

How can that be? How can that be? Guy that writes like this.

I mean...

# Cos they told me everybody's got to pay their dues

# And I explained that I had overpaid them

# Cos the smell of her perfume

# Echoes in my head still. #

MUSIC: "Wonder" by Rodriguez

# I wonder how many times you've been had

# And I wonder how many plans have gone bad

# I wonder how many times you had sex

# And I wonder, do you know who'll be next? #

It's still a bit of a mystery how the first copy of Cold Fact

actually came to South Africa. But one of the stories I've heard

is that there was an American girl and she came to South Africa

to visit her boyfriend and brought a copy of the record with her.

And her and him and all their friends really liked it

and went out to try and buy it but you couldn't buy it.

So they started taping copies and passing copies along.

However it got here, however it germinated here,

once it got here, it spread very quickly.

# How much goin' have you got

# And I wonder about your friends that are not

# I wonder

# I wonder

# Wonder I do. #

I remember I was in high school

and we heard this song, "I wonder how many times you've had sex?"

And at that time South Africa was very conservative.

It was the height of apartheid,

and there wasn't television here.

That's how conservative it was, cos television was communist.

It was really... You wouldn't believe.

Everything was restricted,

everything was censored. Everything was...

And here's this guy singing this song.

"Who's that?" Said, "That's Rodriguez".

And he became something of a rebel sort of icon.

But the strange thing was that we all bought his records.

Everybody I knew had his records. I Wonder,

that was the big song that everybody was singing

and we all bought the record.

And there he was on the cover, sort of a hippy with shades.

But nobody knew anything about him. He was a mystery.

Unlike other artists that you could read about from America,

get to know something about them, there was zilch.

Nobody knew anything.

It was a mystery. We only had his picture on the cover of the record.

MUSIC: "Jane S Piddy" by Rodriguez

# Now you sit there thinking

# Feeling insecure

# The mocking court jester

# Claims there is no proven cure

# Go back to your chamber

# Your eyes upon the wall

# Cos you got no-one to listen

# You got no-one to call

# And you think I'm curious. #

The album was exceptionally popular. To many of us South Africans,

he was the soundtrack to our lives.

In the mid-70s, if you walked into a random

white, liberal, middle-class household

that had a turntable and a pile of pop records

and if you flipped through the records you would always see

Abbey Road by The Beatles.

You would always see Bridge Over Troubled Water

by Simon and Garfunkel.

And you would always see Cold Fact by Rodriguez.

To us, it was one of the most famous records of all time.

The message it had was: "Be anti-establishment".

One song's called Anti-Establishment Blues.

We didn't know what the word "anti-establishment" was

until it cropped up on a Rodriguez song and then we found out

it's OK to protest against your society,

to be angry with your society.

Because we lived in a society

where every means was used to prevent apartheid from,

you know, coming to an end...

..this album somehow had in it...

lyrics that almost set us free as oppressed peoples.

Any revolution needs an anthem

and, in South Africa, Cold Fact was the album

that gave people permission

to free their minds and to start thinking differently.

MUSIC: "The Establishment Blues" by Rodriguez

# The mayor hides the crime rate Council woman hesitates

# Public gets irate But forgets the vote date

# This system's going to fall soon To an angry young tune

# And that's a concrete cold fact... #

It may seem strange that South African record companies

didn't do more to try and track down Rodriguez,

but, actually, if you look back at the time

we were in the middle of apartheid, the height of apartheid.

South Africa was under sanctions

from countries from all over the world.

South African musicians were not allowed to play overseas.

No foreign acts were allowed to visit South Africa.

It was a closed-door situation

between South Africa and the rest of the world.

# Woke up this morning with an ache in my head

# I splashed on my clothes as I spilled out of bed

# I opened the window to listen to the news

# But all I heard was the establishment's blues... #

The countries around the world were saying horrible things

about the apartheid government

but we didn't know because they controlled the news.

The majority of the population had been marginalized

and forced out of commerce and areas.

It was what had happened in Nazi Germany.

It was a spin-off from Nazi Germany,

but if a newspaper published it, they'd get prosecuted.

So, because of that,

South Africa had achieved a pariah status in the world.

There were cultural boycotts. There were sporting boycotts.

It was a very isolated society. So we were cut off.

We all knew apartheid was wrong, but, living in South Africa,

there wasn't much, as a white person, you could do about it,

cos the government was very strict.

It was a military state, to a large degree.

If you spoke out against apartheid,

you could be thrown into prison for three years.

So although a lot of whites were part of the struggle,

the majority of whites were not.

You were watched. There were spies. It was scary and people were scared.

But out of the Afrikaans community emerged

a group of Afrikaans musicians, songwriters,

and, for them, when they heard Rodriguez,

it was like a voice spoke to them

and said, "Guys, there's a way out. There's a way out.

"You can write music. You can write imagery.

"You can sing, you can perform".

And that was where, really, the first opposition to apartheid

came from inside the Afrikaans community.

It was these young Afrikaans guys and, to a man,

they'll tell you they were influenced by Rodriguez.

Koos Kombuis. Willem Moller.

The late Johannes Kerkorrel.

The guys who were regarded

as the icons of the Afrikaans music revolution

will all tell you, "Rodriguez was our guy".

THEY SING

We call it the Voelvry movement

of Afrikaans artists singing against apartheid.

All of us listened to Rodriguez at some point. All of us.

It had an enormous impact.

It made you just think that there's another way.

What's presented to you by the establishment isn't all theirs.

-# Set if off, set if off

-Set if off, set if off

-# Set if off, set it off

-Set if off... #

The biggest hit was a song called Set It Off

which was when PW Botha was the president then.

The real bad guy. When he came on TV, he used to talk like that.

And this song said, "Switch it off, just switch off the TV."

So what lines do you think were the lines they had problem with?

Ah, gee whiz, it's all of them.

"Sugar Man, won't you hurry Cos I'm tired of these scenes

"For a blue coin, won't you bring back all those colours to my dreams?"

The most difficult ones is probably

"Silver magic ships, you carry Jumpers, coke, sweet Mary Jane".

And what is that?

Uh...

I'm going to leave that to you.

THEY CHUCKLE

-But it's drugs?

-It's certainly drugs.

During the apartheid years, it was just impossible to play it.

And what happened if you did play it?

Well, you couldn't. I'd like to show you why.

Right, here we have the album, the vinyl.

At the back of the sleeve you'll see a sticker that says "Avoid".

But when you open the album and take it out from its sleeve...

you would see that they have scratched that particular song

with a sharp tool to make sure that it would not go out on air.

And that's the way that they banned the music which, in my mind,

was quite a brutal way of ensuring the song

would never be heard on the air.

Most of those tracks were on the banned list at SABC

and they ran the broadcast industry completely.

There weren't any independent radio stations or TV stations.

Obviously, when that word got out,

it just made the record more desirable.

You know, it's like having something banned.

You're 16, 17 years old and you've got something that's banned.

It was absolutely perfect.

MUSIC: "Can't Get Away" by Rodriguez

# Born in the troubled city

# In rock'n'roll, USA

# In the shadow of the tallest building

# I vowed I would break away

# Listened to the Sunday actors

# But all they would ever say

# That you can't get away from it

# No, you can't get away... #

Cold Fact was just one of the albums we had in our collections,

and for 10, 20 years, it was just a record we listened to and enjoyed.

But then a pivotal event happened that changed everything for me.

We were down in Camps Bay beach.

We were sitting around on the beach and a friend of mine,

a woman, who was from South Africa,

but she had got married and emigrated to Los Angeles,

she said to me, "Where can I buy Cold Fact in South Africa?"

And I turned round and I pointed to a store across the road

that sold CDs and I said, "You can buy it at that store".

She said, "Really? Because, you know, you can't buy it anywhere in America.

"I've asked everywhere in America, no-one's even heard of it".

And that was a pivotal moment, cos I didn't know that.

I thought everybody knew Rodriguez,

especially in America cos he was American.

So my next thought was, "Ah, Rodriguez, that's interesting".

I came back home and I took out my Rodriguez records

and that's when I realised there was nothing on the record

to tell us who he was or where he was from.

On Cold Fact, there are four names.

On the front cover it just says "Rodriguez".

But if we take the record out and examine the sleeve,

the artist's name is Sixto Rodriguez.

But if you look at the tracks,

six of these tracks

are credited to Jesus Rodriguez,

and four of these tracks are credited to Sixth Prince.

So who actually wrote these songs and who are all these people?

We didn't have any more information than a record

with him sitting on the cover with a hat and sunglasses on.

We didn't know how tall he was cos he was sitting cross-legged.

So how do you solve a mystery?

You use whatever information's available.

What did we have? A record cover with lyrics.

So we started looking quite deeply at the lyrics

and seeing what they said,

and some of them, very few of them, had geographical references.

The one, You Can't Get Away, starts off,

"Born in the troubled city In Rock and Roll, USA".

Born in which troubled city?

Seems all the cities were troubled in the late '60s.

"In the shadow of the tallest building".

The tallest building, as far as we knew, was in New York.

And at the bottom of the song this verse says,

"In a hotel room in Amsterdam".

Then it says, "Going down a dusty Georgian side road I wander".

Georgia? So we've had Amsterdam,

we've had Georgia, we've had the world's tallest building.

Not much to go on.

Well, what I heard, and the story differs a lot,

and a lot of people have different versions of the story,

but what I heard, he hadn't played a concert in a very long time.

And a promoter got him to play a concert,

and he was hoping this was going to be a great show.

Of course, the show didn't work out that way. It started out...

The sound wasn't good. The venue wasn't good.

A lot of the factors surrounding the show wasn't good.

And as the show went on and on,

it started going downhill from there. People started ridiculing him.

People started whistling or making mention of the fact that,

you know, the show wasn't going as planned.

And it got to a point where, just very quietly, very gently,

he just sang his last song.

"But thanks for your time Then you can thank me for mine

"And after that's said forget it".

And he reached down and pulled up a gun and pulled the trigger.

And that was the dramatic, very dramatic ending,

to what was actually a non-career.

In 1996, the South African record label

released Rodriguez's second album, Coming From Reality,

on CD for the first time in South Africa.

And because they thought I knew a lot about him,

they asked if I wanted to co-write the liner notes for the booklet,

which I did.

And I'll read some of it to you. They start off by saying,

"If ever there is an air of intrigue and mystery around a pop artist,

"it is around the artist known as Rodriguez.

"There's no air of intrigue and mystery around him

"anywhere else in the world because his two albums,

"Coming From Reality and Cold Fact,

"were monumental flops everywhere else".

And this is the important part.

"There were no concrete cold facts about the artist known as Rodriguez.

"Any musicologist detectives out there?"

And that, that's the line that changed everything.

I started searching for Rodriguez

when a few of us were sitting around in the Army

and somebody said, "How did Rodriguez die?"

And just coincidence, at the time I was looking

for subject matter to write an article.

I remember having, like, five points on a piece of paper.

And number four, or something, was "Find out how Rodriguez died".

I thought it would make a good story.

So that was in the back of my mind for many years

and then, many years later, I came across this, um,

re-release of Coming From Reality and inside, the liner notes said,

"There were no concrete cold facts about the artist known as Rodriguez.

"Any musicologist detectives out there?" Um, was the question,

and I think that to me, was like an invitation.

I thought, "Well, maybe it's me".

The first way I tried to find him was to just follow the money.

Normally, you follow the money.

That's how you get to the bottom of anything.

But where do dead men's money go?

I was astounded that no-one knew anything about him.

I guess it was reminiscent of how bad the music industry was.

They were renowned for ripping people off.

And it is one thing, if they'd said to me, "Oh, yeah,

"we send the money to X place or Y," or whatever,

but they just kept on being very vague.

And, in fact, when I put some pressure on somebody,

I did get an address, and I called and,

I can't remember if I spoke to someone or left a message,

but when I called the next day, the number had been changed.

And that to me was...

I mean, that's a gift for anyone who wants to be a detective,

is an obstacle, because an obstacle is an inspiration.

If you just find things easily, they're not inspiring,

and this was a great obstacle that somebody had changed their number.

I just smelt a dirty money story somewhere there.

So, if you compare to other artists, how big was it actually?

Every month it just sold.

And every party you went to and every place you went to,

you'd hear that album at least once.

I don't think I could even think of how many albums he's sold here

cos it's a long period of time.

What could be probable?

HE SIGHS

I'd have to guess maybe half a million copies

over that period of time.

It's a lot of records, especially for a small country.

Gold record, ten times over.

Rodriguez never got to know that he was big in South Africa.

How could that be?

Don't know. I mean, everything would have been...

I find that strange.

I have no idea.

But you must have sent royalties somewhere?

Of course we sent royalties. We sent royalties to A&M Records.

I remember the label. It was A&M Sussex. Whether they

had a partnership, whatever they had, I don't... You know.

So, my suggestion is, if you can find out whoever the person was

who owned Sussex Records,

then you will find out what happened to the money.

Because it's weird, isn't it?

It's very strange. Very strange.

How popular was the album? Was he as famous as,

you know, the Rolling Stones and the Doors?

Oh, it was much bigger than Rolling Stones.

Absolutely, at the time, yeah.

When you released the record, did you try to contact him?

No, not at all. You know? Because... Because, at the time,

the legend... The legend was...

here was an artist. This was like Jimi Hendrix.

With Jimi Hendrix catalogues, you've got to understand,

if you just got Jimi Hendrix

and you'd got the licence for this territory,

you're obviously not going to go

try get hold of Jimi Hendrix, because he's dead.

-But who did you pay royalties to?

-To Sussex Music.

To Clarence?

Yes. Well, to Sussex Music which is his company, yeah.

So, I decided to make a diagram.

Write down the whole path and trail that I was trying to work out.

All the various touch points, all the record companies,

all the people that had dealings

with Rodriguez and his album at some point.

I made this whole document.

So I found out there were three record companies in South Africa

that had released Rodriguez's records.

Finally discovering that led to a record company in America -

it was a company that had been signing Rodriguez

and creating his first album - called Sussex.

I then did my research on Sussex.

That led me to discovering

who the owner of Sussex Records was - Clarence Avant.

Clarence Avant, he'd been the head of Motown,

one of the most prestigious jobs to have

in the record company industry.

So I did my research.

I tried everything to get hold of Clarence Avant,

but I just got to a lot of closed doors. I could not get hold of him.

I don't know if you've ever seen this picture.

HE CHUCKLES That's him.

That's Rodriguez.

I don't know when this was made. I have absolutely no idea.

-That's 1970, I think.

-Yeah.

This is my man.

Man, don't get me emotional again. Shit.

You made me emotional once.

I ain't getting emotional no more sitting here talking to you, man.

If I had to name ten artists that I have ever been involved with,

Rodriguez would be in the top five, simple as that.

There's nothing... You never heard anything like him.

People would say, "Well, Bob Dylan". I said, "No, no".

Bob Dylan was mild to this guy. Did it make any money?

We judge singing here in America...

If you say, "Is it... Was it the top hundred?

"Was it... was it number... Did it get on the charts as number 12?

"Was there a lot of radio play?" The answer's, "No, man".

Nobody didn't... "Rodriguez?"

You know, that name didn't register.

Although he looked like he was a white guy but, even still, Rodriguez,

everybody knew Rodriguez, that's a Spanish name.

A Latin name. Latin music was not happening then.

How many records do you think he sold in America?

In America? Six.

Maybe my wife bought it, maybe my daughter bought...

She couldn't buy it, but maybe Neil Bogart, maybe Dennis and Mike.

Hey, look, man, you know, it didn't sell here.

There was some excitement about him.

Couple of agents heard him and wanted to bring him to California

and, you know, when he came to California he was nervous,

and he turned his back to the audience

and everybody said, "Well, what the hell is this?"

But the thing is that the guy sold

hundreds of thousands of records in another country.

I'm going to South Africa

to try to chase somebody who's selling records? Shit, no, man.

But did you know that he was big in South Africa?

Rodriguez, young man, never happened insofar as I'm concerned.

Period.

But if I'm really going to try to track down the money,

how should I do it?

Well, is that important, the money? Or is Rod...

Which is important? Rodriguez's story or you worrying about the money?

How many people in South Africa?

40 million? 40,000? 40 million people? How many people?

40 million people live in South Africa.

Well, so they've been freed for how long? Three hours?

So what the fuck's that supposed to mean? You told me at lunch,

they scratch records because they wouldn't let the lyrics...

So the underground movement, how big was it? How big was it?

He sold half a million records in South Africa.

Well, so he sold half a million records. So what?

I don't know who he sold them to.

How many distributors did he have? I have no idea.

There are three record labels.

-I spoke to all the record label...

-Well, great.

..bosses in South Africa who has released his records.

-It was...

-Go back to 'em and tell 'em to send me an account.

You think it's something they're going to worry about,

a 1970 contract? If you do, you're outta your goddamn mind.

Buddha Records out of business. I'm out of business.

So you think they give a shit about that? I know I wouldn't.

I've been looking for information about Rodriguez for a long time.

I've even set-up a web page called The Great Rodriguez Hunt

in the hope that someone out there in cyberspace

would post a message on the forum

giving us any information about Rodriguez.

But there was nothing.

At that stage I met Craig,

who was the musicologist detective who had read my liner notes

and who was also searching for Rodriguez.

And he flew down to Cape Town and we met in a coffee shop.

And we exchanged all the information we had.

But unfortunately we had very little.

And at that stage I remember we felt

it was probably best if we just stopped.

So basically I was lost. I'd come to a dead end. I couldn't find him.

I didn't know where to look any more.

I'd even visited the places that he sang about.

I'd been to London. Nothing.

I'd been to Amsterdam. He sings about Amsterdam. Nothing.

And one day I'd basically given up. I thought, "Well, this is it".

And one day, just by accident, I was listening to the album in the car

and I heard the song Inner City Blues.

Great song. And the line came up.

"I met a girl in Dearborn, early six o'clock this morn.

"A cold fact".

Then I thought, "Hang on a minute". I'd never checked out Dearborn.

I didn't even know if it WAS a city but then I thought,

"Actually, that sounds like a town or a city".

And I thought, "Hang on, let me check it out in an atlas".

So I went through to my old atlas and pulled it out.

I thought, "Let me see what I could find here.

"Let me see if I could find Dearborn".

Um... Dear...

Then I found it. Dearborn, Wayne, Michigan. F7.

F... 7.

Dearborn. Part of Detroit. That was a huge breakthrough in my mind.

Detroit, home of Motown, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder,

and, eventually, Mike Theodore, the producer of the album.

I was sifting in my condo, just having a cup of coffee.

I was looking out the window watching the ocean. Phone rings.

It's a long-distance call from South Africa...

..from a writer whose name's Craig Bartholomew,

and he starts telling me this amazing story.

So he said, "Do you know that Rodriguez

"has been selling in South Africa for 25 years?

"His albums are selling millions".

I said, "What?!"

Then he's sitting there and he wants...

He starts telling me some stories.

He said, "How did Rodriguez die?"

And he's telling me information that he had that Rodriguez had...

..blown his brains out on stage,

or set himself on fire and killed himself.

I had 100 questions I wanted to ask.

I was just hoping I could get all my questions in, you know.

"Why did he write this lyric? Why did he write that lyric?

"Where did he record this album? Where did he record that album?"

And we got talking and I asked him a lot of questions and it was amazing.

It was a roller coaster ride of questions and answers,

and it was a euphoric moment of just having finally broken through

and discovered something.

And finally I got to the one question I wanted to know the answer of, was,

"How did Rodriguez die? Did he blow himself up on stage? Or...

"What is this dramatic story?

"Let's open up the lid on this right away, and find out what happened".

And Mike Theodore said,

"What do you mean dead? He's not dead."

"Sixto is alive. He's alive and kicking.

"The principal artist known as Sixto Rodriguez

"is alive and kicking and living in Detroit".

I... I can't remember who called me and said, "They've found him".

I said, "No. You're shitting me. This isn't... No".

HE LAUGHS

At first I thought it was a hoax. I thought somebody was faking it.

You know, it's like going into Tutankhamen's tomb

and finding the mummy. You know, it was like, "Wow, he lives".

I remember dancing on the spot when I was staying on the phone.

And Craig and I were jumping up and down saying,

"We found him, we found him".

It was the most exciting thing. We'd actually done it.

MUSIC "I Think of You" by Rodriguez

# Just a song we shared out here

# Brings memories back when you were here

# Of your smile, your easy laughter

# Of your kiss, those moments after

# I think of you

So that was it.

I'd come to the point, it was the end of the story.

I was searching for a dead man. One morning I discovered a living man.

And to me that was the end of the story. I wrote my article,

I called it "Looking for Jesus".

I faxed it to many individuals, many people involved,

but somehow this article made its way across the Atlantic

and into the hands of someone in America.

And what I thought was the end of story

was actually just the beginning of another story,

and the best part was still to come.

Cos I don't know where it is. It might take a while.

They do have the dates.

"Three-year search for dead singer". Yes.

August '97. I was in Kansas.

I got a copy of it to me at work. I was on, like, a 24-hour shift.

And then, I went online

and that's when I discovered the website.

When I went online there was this milk carton with a picture.

And it said, "Wanted" and "Have you seen this man?"

I was like, "Matter of fact, I have seen him before".

I replied, "Rodriguez is my father. I'm serious.

"Do you really want to know about my father?

"Sometimes the fantasy is better left alive".

I don't know why I said that, but anyway I did.

And then I gave them e-mail address, phone numbers,

anything that they wanted to contact me. And he phoned me.

Well, we'd found out that Rodriguez was alive.

I'd spoken to Craig.

I came to work and Alex McCrindle,

who was the guy I worked on the website with said,

"You're not going to believe what's on the website".

And on the website was a forum where people could post messages,

and there was a message that said,

"My name's Eva. I'm Rodriguez's daughter". She'd left a phone number

and she said, "I'd like to speak to someone in connection with this".

So that night I phoned her.

I said, "Hi, I'm Sugar," and she said, "I'm Eva,"

and we had the most amazing conversation.

She explained to me who her father was,

what he had done, where he had been.

She asked me who I was and I explained why my name was Sugar

and how I was involved with the website.

And then at the end I said to her,

"This has been the most amazing thing for me,

"and what would be really great

"is if I could, at some point, speak to your dad.

"I'd love it if I could just say hello to him".

Because, for me, this was sort of the end of the search

and I just wanted to speak to this man.

And then I went to bed.

And 1:00 in the morning that night, the phone rang.

And my wife answers it cos it was her side of the bed.

And I remember she picked up the phone and her face just changed.

She had this look of awe. She said, "It's him".

And I was in shock. I'd been sleeping

and I ran into the other room, into my study,

and I picked up the phone and she put hers down.

And I said, "Hello?" and a voice said...

RODRIGUEZ'S VOICE ON PHONE: 'Hello, is that Sugar?'

And I knew, I just knew, because I knew that voice.

I'd heard that voice so many times on the records, I knew it was him.

I was talking to Rodriguez.

That, for me, was one of the greatest moments of my life.

MUSIC: "Sandrevan Lullaby" by Rodriguez

-Whenever you're ready.

-OK.

Is this all right? Should I be doing something though?

Should I have a glass of water or something? Is that right?

-Do you want?

-Yeah. I like that.

Yeah, this is... I'm supposed to be comfortable.

So run the question to me again. Just so I can hear it in my head.

In the '70s and '80s, did you ever get any contact from South Africa?

Uh... No, I didn't.

Maybe they didn't have a contact number or something

but, no, I didn't.

How does that feel? You weren't aware of something

that would have changed your life completely.

I mean, probably for the better.

Well, I don't know if it would have been for the better,

but it's certainly a thought, you know.

But wouldn't it have been nice to know that you were a superstar?

Uh, well...

I don't know how to respond to that.

After Coming From Reality, did you want to continue making albums?

I would have liked to have continued but nothing beats Reality.

So I pretty much went back to work.

What did you do?

I... Well, I'd do hired labour.

Demolition, renovation of buildings,

of homes, you know. Restoration.

Did you enjoy that?

I do. It keeps the blood circulating, keeps you fit, yeah.

But it's quite far away from music.

Uh... Yeah, quite a bit, quite a different contrast, yeah.

Did you continue making music on your own?

I do, I play guitar. I love playing guitar.

But I do love to listen. I like to go see the shows and things.

But I do get about.

MUSIC: "Street Boy" by Rodriguez

# Street boy You've been out too long

# Street boy Makes kind of sense to go home

# Street boy You're going to end up alone

# You need some love and understanding

# Not that dead-end life you're planning

# Street boy

# You go home but you can't stay

# Because something's always pulling you away

# You're fast hellos And quick goodbyes

# You're just a street boy with the street lights in your eyes

# You'd better get yourself together

# Look for something better. #

He never said anything about being disappointed.

He would just move on, continue to survive

because you can't just give up.

What did he do instead?

He read a lot.

He was involved in politics. He was involved in the community.

He would attend protests and rallies,

if those were causes that he believed in. He would take us along.

He was always a proponent of working for the people

that maybe didn't always have a voice,

or didn't have a chance to speak up, the working class, the working poor.

He had a lot of experience in that area.

He approached the work from a different place than most people do.

He took it very, very seriously.

Sort of like a sacrament, you know?

He was going to do this dirty, dirty work for eight or ten hours, OK?

But he was dressed in a tuxedo.

HE CHUCKLES

He had this kind of magical quality

that all genuine poets and artists have

to elevate things. To get above the mundane, the prosaic.

All the bullshit. All the mediocrity that's everywhere.

The artist, the artist is the pioneer.

Even if his musical hopes were dashed, the spirit remained.

And he just had to keep finding a place, refining the process

of how to apply himself.

He knew that there was something more.

It was in the early '80s. He wanted to do something,

do something righteous, make a difference.

-So, lo and behold...

-HE CHUCKLES

..he told me that he was going to run for mayor,

and I thought, "Well, God bless you, Rodriguez.

"You know, if you can become Mayor of Detroit,

"then anything is possible".

MUSIC: "Inner City Blues" by Rodriguez)

# Met a girl from Dearborn Early six o'clock this morn

# A cold fact

# Asked about her bag Suburbia's such a drag

# Won't go back

# Cos papa don't allow no new ideas here... #

Some old items from Rodriguez.

This is his bumper sticker,

from the first time he ran for city council.

And I think this is a copy of the ballot.

He didn't win an election, ever.

139. There were 169 candidates. Nine get elected.

They spelled his name wrong.

My relatives on my mother's side of the family

are European and Native American.

And my father's family is Mexican.

My grandfather came from Mexico.

The Mexican came to Detroit to work in the auto factories,

so we were working-class people, blue-collar workers, hard labour.

Um, we lived in 26 different homes

and some houses didn't have bedrooms.

Some houses didn't have bathrooms.

And they weren't homes. They were just places that we lived.

But just because people are poor or have little

doesn't mean that, you know, their dreams aren't big

and their soul isn't rich, you know,

and that's where the classes and the prejudice come from

is that there is a difference between you and me,

and there's a difference between them and us.

MUSIC: "A Most Disgusting Song" by Rodriguez)

# I've played every kind of gig there is to play now

# I've played faggot bars, hooker bars, motorcycle funerals

# In opera houses, concert halls, halfway houses

# Well, I found that in all these places that I've played

# All the people that I've played for are the same people

# So if you'll listen, maybe you'll see someone you know in this song

# A most disgusting song... #

He wasn't just doing your average carpentry. You know,

he was really cleaning out the house.

I mean, doing work that no-one else wanted to do.

Really, no-one else wanted to do that work.

He would come home, he would be covered in dust

and dirt, paint chips, from his day's work. Long days.

I saw him take refrigerators down on his back, downstairs.

It was just a day at work for him,

but I knew he was a harder worker

than a lot of other fathers that I knew of.

It's a city that tells you not to dream big,

not to expect anything more.

But he always took me to places

that only certain elite people would be able to go, so...

he kind of instilled in me that I can go anywhere I want,

regardless of what my bank statement says, and I'm going, you know.

So, that's kinda how he was. He showed me the top floors of places.

I said, "I'm just as good as they are," you know.

He majored in philosophy in university.

My dad gave us a lot of exposure to the arts.

He would let us go into the libraries

and the museums and the science centres,

and where that was our day care, and we...

..toured the halls of the museum and saw Diego Rivera

and, you know, all Picasso and Delacroix and...

We began to learn of life outside of the city,

and that's in books and paintings and in music.

MUSIC: "Lifestyles" by Rodriguez

# The judges with meter-maid hearts

# Or their supermarket justice starts

# Frozen children inner city

# Walkers in the paper rain

# Waiting for those knights that never came

# The hijacked trying so hard to be pretty

# Night rains tap at my window

# Winds of my thoughts passing by

# She laughed when I tried to tell her

# Hello only ends in goodbye. #

Well, I started playing when I was 16,

and the thing is, it was a family guitar,

and I played a lot of bars in the city

and clubs in the city, small rooms.

And I met Mike Theodore and Dennis Coffey

and they came to the club to see me play.

I had a gig at a place called The Sewer,

right out by the Detroit River,

and then we got a record deal from Clarence Avant,

so that's how it started.

But all those early years were, you know...a lot of work.

I was at a Chrysler plant called Dodge Maine,

and I also worked at Eldon and Lynch Road in Detroit.

Worked in the heat treat department. Stuff like that.

A lot of heavy labour.

But it was a good year for me. This Cold Fact thing.

I had achieved what I was trying to do, is to get a product, you know.

And it was going very well, I thought, you know.

How did it feel? A great feeling of accomplishment. Actualization.

Did you believe that it was a good album?

Um...

I did my best with it.

The reviews were good on it, and...

Yeah, I thought it was good.

I'm not the one to ask that, though. HE CHUCKLES

Ask that question to.

But you go ahead, yeah.

Were you surprised that it didn't sell?

Um...

Was I surprised?

It's the music business so there's no guarantees, you know?

So I told him, "You're bigger than Elvis,"

and he said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "In South Africa you are more popular than Elvis Presley".

And there was this pause,

and I sensed he thought it was a crank call

and he was going to hang up.

So I said, "Listen, wait. Listen, listen to me, wait.

"I promise you, just come here. You won't be disappointed".

He's working his ass off in Woodbridge.

One day, be brought this picture of himself on a milk carton.

HE CHUCKLES

And he'd say, "Emmerson, look at this.

"You know, they're looking for me".

I said, "Really? Why is that, Rodriguez?"

Next day he says, "Emmerson, I got to go on tour".

I said, "Come on, Rodriguez, are you serious?"

Because I'm a journalist, I doubted it.

That sort of thing does not happen in the rational universe.

It does not happen. It's against the laws of God and nature.

This guy is coming to tour here, he must be an imposter.

It's a clever public relations scam.

Actually, not even a clever public relations scam.

It's a stupid public relations scam cos it so obviously can't be true.

Only idiots would believe it. They...

But I was wrong.

We were always anxious, of course, to get off the plane.

That was a long flight. But we got off the plane

and we put our bags on our backs and, you know, they were heavy

and we just kept moving towards the airport.

And suddenly, three, two limousines pulled up and...

..we were sure that they weren't for us.

We were like kind of walking around them.

Like, "Oh, we better get out of these people's way

"cos they're important people in limos".

But they were for us. And that's when it began.

It was all another world. It was another world.

Just like you would see people... over Madonna or...

Like stepping out into the wind and the paparazzi and all the...

you know, the production assistants

and everybody are there to welcome him

and take us into the VIP suite.

The white carpeting. You know, that was something that

never would we ever even dream of walking on white carpeting,

-especially in your shoes.

-SHE LAUGHS

They put him in a limo and they drove him into the city.

And along the way, on all the lamp posts,

were placards advertising the concert.

And he saw his face on every lamp post as it sped by

and he'd go, "There I am, there I am, there I am".

So we came and we got to meet all the people.

We got to meet Craig Bartholomew and their family and their kids

and Stephen Segerman.

And everybody was just so happy. Everybody was thrilled.

We were even happier.

Stephen phoned me. He said, "You will never believe this...

.."but Rodriguez is coming to South Africa

"and we can be the opening band.

"Do you want to do it?" I said, "Of course we want to do it".

"Why? Where is he?" "Now they found him.

"They found him, he's alive,

"he's going to come and tour in South Africa".

Are we going to be the opening band. So I couldn't really believe this.

And then I got all the information -

he's living in Detroit and everything.

And then a little while later he said,

"Look, it turns out he hasn't got a band.

"Could we be the support band?" I mean his band.

I remember, even then, we were sort of...

"Is this really going to be Rodriguez?"

We'll only know if he can actually sing these songs.

I mean, we don't know.

-What if it's just some guy?

-HE CHUCKLES

It was just like one day we heard about it

and the next day we were there...

..trying to believe our eyes,

thinking it was just all very shocking.

I don't know, he took to it really easy.

He just walked in and did his thing

and I was amazed that he did so well.

But he's not all "head in the clouds" kinda guy.

He's a little bit too much grounded.

He didn't take advantage of all the amenities and stuff.

He didn't sleep in the big double king size bed.

He kinda curled up on the love seat and I found him there and...

Yeah, he just didn't think somebody should have to make another bed

because he messed it up or...

There was a time where I stayed in the house we were at

and everyone else had gone out.

The phone rang and it kept ringing, so I decided to answer it.

And it was a reporter looking to speak with Rodriguez

and set up time for an interview.

And then, before she hung up, after I told her to call back later

to talk to someone cos I couldn't help her,

she told me that she wanted to know, between she and I,

if it was the real Rodriguez.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

'We were rehearsing with a CD

'of the songs that we've got in the studio here in Cape Town,'

on the day that he came from the airport, when he arrived,

and we were actually in the middle of a song when he walked in

and just took over the microphone and finished the song.

We switched off the CD player and it was, like,

completely seamless. Completely seamless.

I mean, "OK, this is the guy".

I think we all knew this is

going to be something really special.

Thank you, Cape Town. Thank you.

When we, uh... initially got on a plane,

I thought maybe there'd be, hopefully,

20 people in the audience.

-Hopefully.

-SHE LAUGHS

But it turned out really, really different than that.

And there's old people and young people

and they're coming to see the show.

I stepped out on the stage before he went on stage,

cos I wanted to take a picture of the audience,

since "nobody's going to believe this!"

You must remember, this guy,

it's like seeing someone like Elvis come back from the dead.

People in the audience still don't believe it. They're standing there.

They're at the concert. They've paid their money.

They still don't believe that Rodriguez

is actually going to walk on that stage.

CHEERING

Are you ready?

CHEERING

Please welcome...

Rodriguez!

MUSIC: "I Wonder" by Rodriguez

CHEERING

It was almost as if he didn't even have to play.

They were just happy to see him.

So, for a time, I think, they wanted to meet.

It was a reunion.

It was something completely different.

It was for everybody there, I'm sure,

the most exciting concert they'd ever been to.

Because it was unique.

We'd never seen Rodriguez. And all you heard

was the bass player just playing...

HE MIMICS BASS

And Rodriguez wandered out to the front of the stage

and the bass player actually just stopped playing. And it took a while.

There was about five or ten minutes of just people screaming at him.

CHEERING

Thanks for keeping me alive.

INTRO CONTINUES

# I wonder How many times you've been had

# And I wonder How many plans have gone bad

# I wonder how many times you had sex

# And I wonder Do you know who'll be next?

# I wonder

# I wonder

# Wonder I do... #

I think to go from being the outcast

to being, uh, who he really was.

Because it was as though it was him again... And that was who he was,

a musician on stage, playing for his fans.

MUSIC: "Forget It" by Rodriguez

# It didn't work out But don't ever doubt how I felt

# About you

# But thanks for your time... #

BARTHOLOMEW-STRYDOM: 'I thought that I would see him

'being bewildered at all these people staring up at him.

'I saw the opposite. I saw this absolute tranquillity.

'There was absolute serenity on his face. Total.

'It's like he had arrived at that thing, at that place

'he'd tried to find his whole life.'

'Home is acceptance.

'Here's a guy who'd lived somewhere else,

'on the other side of the earth,

'and it was almost as if he had found his home.'

'And I looked around at all these people

'and I thought, "This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

' "This is never going to happen again". '

INAUDIBLE

Well, isn't this all our great fate?

Your dreams of yourself, the higher forms of yourself is that one day

you will be recognised and that your talents and everything else,

will suddenly become visible to the world.

I mean, most of us die without coming anywhere close

to that sort of magic.

I tried to get him to talk about that when I interviewed him,

about how strange it was, and I got absolutely nothing back.

Absolutely nothing back.

And I couldn't tell whether

he was just like sort of cripplingly shy

or whether I was asking the wrong questions

or there was a language barrier or whatever.

Maybe that was OK as well because he preserved his mystery.

I walked away from that interview saying,

"This is all too strange to be true".

It remains too strange to be true.

"These are the days of miracles and wonder".

CHEERING

RODRIGUEZ: 'Oh, they were so sweet.

'I didn't believe it.

'And I still don't, but the thing is...'

So when I went on stage 5,000 seats all set up,

white seats, and the thing is...

And I said, "This is..."

So when I played a show,

they jumped out of their seats and rushed the stage.

South Africa made me feel like more than a prince.

-EVA:

-And then signing the autographs for, like, a couple of hours.

I mean, just the line of people bringing their guitars to be signed,

bringing their CDs and...

-REGAN:

-The most amazing thing I'd seen

was the man with his tattoo of the Cold Fact.

He was a Rodriguez impersonator. That just stoked my fire.

I was like, "Man, that is just too crazy".

I have with me here, presented to Rodriguez

for sales of the album Cold Fact.

CHEERING

Now just tell the States that, OK, will you?

LAUGHTER

American singer Rodriguez is certainly alive and well

and with us in the Front Row tonight. Welcome.

Very kind. How are you?

I've heard some really riveting tales about your "death".

I mean, they range from you pouring petrol all over yourself on stage

and committing suicide to taking a drug overdose and dying in prison...

-EVA:

-Yeah, it was a beautiful, beautiful dream. And then...

-then you got to go back.

-SHE LAUGHS

My dad said he's got two lives.

The carriage turns into the pumpkin bus or something. It's like...

Did people in Detroit believe you

when you came back and told them what had happened?

You know, people in Detroit need to hear something good.

I'm not sure how much of it they believed

because it is a grandiose story.

It sounds like something you would make up

if you were bragging on some dream or something.

-FERRETTI:

-He was really quite famous.

He'd be, you know, tearing down this old shack

or he'd be sweeping up filth or dirt

and he started to show me one day, and I didn't believe him,

about the album and how it got to be so popular.

Somebody had a bootleg copy of this thing

and it spread around and everyone...

It got to be so popular that children could recite it

and sing the song word for word... ALL of the songs word for word.

And I had never heard of the album

and I said, "Can you get me an album?"

And he couldn't even get me one.

I mean, that's how obscure of a thing it was.

But he had all these photos and stuff, with these giant crowds,

20,000 people, like Woodstock or something.

Like, "Are you kidding me? That's you?"

I thought it was Photoshopped or something. I didn't believe him.

But he had all these giant crowds and he was quite content

to just go and sweep up people's lawns

or clean up and do manual labour. He stayed.

He lives a very, very, very modest life.

Definitely.

There's definitely no excess...

..and he definitely still works hard in order to make ends meet.

And there's no glamour to his life in that sense.

But he must be a rich man today?

No.

Rich in a lot of things but perhaps not material things.

I guess it just never got to that.

But he's sold hundreds of thousands of records in South Africa.

Well, yes.

But I believe there's a great deal of perhaps bootlegging...

..piracy, suchlike that. Perhaps...

Perhaps other people are rich.

MUSIC: "I'll Slip Away" by Rodriguez

# And I forget about the girl that said no

# Then I'll tell who I want where to go

# And I'll forget about your lies and deceit

# And your attempts to be so discreet

# Maybe today Yeah

# I'll slip away

# And you can keep your symbols of success

# Then I'll pursue my own happiness

# And you can keep your clocks and routines... #

You know, when I think about that night

when I spoke to Eva on the telephone,

we could not have imagined how much our lives were going to change

after that phone call.

Eva came on tour with Rodriguez

and the organizers arranged a chaperone bodyguard

to drive them around and they fell in love.

And they have a child.

So Rodriguez has a South African grandson,

a South African grandchild.

For me, I used to be a jeweller in Johannesburg.

I now live in Cape Town and have a music store.

Things changed so much for us.

But, except for one person, and that's Rodriguez.

For him, nothing has changed.

The life that he was living is still the life that he's living now.

What he's demonstrated very clearly is that you have a choice.

He took all that torment, all that agony,

all that confusion and pain,

and he transformed it into something beautiful.

He's like the silk worm, you know?

You take this raw material and you transform it.

And you come out with something that wasn't there before.

Something beautiful.

Something perhaps transcendent. Something perhaps eternal.

Insofar as he does that,

I think he's representative of the human spirit, of what's possible.

That you have a choice. "And this has been my choice,

"to give you Sugar Man". Now, have you done that? Ask yourself.

MUSIC: "Crucify Your Mind" by Rodriguez

# Was it a huntsman or a player That made you pay the cost

# That now assumes relaxed positions

# And prostitutes your loss?

# Were you tortured by your own thirst

# In those pleasures that you seek

# That made you Tom the Curious

# That makes you James the Weak?

# But you claim you've got something going

# Something you call unique

# But I've seen your self-pity showing

# As the tears roll down your cheeks

# Soon you know I'll leave you