Daily Telegraph – Sugar Man Feature

Singer who·didn't know he was a star

A new film tells the remarkable story of a Sixties singer feted in a faraway lal}d, says David Gritten thrown up by popular music in our time: It'sa singer-songwriteramong the most extraordinarywho recorded storiestwo albums four decades ago that barely sold at all, resigned himself to a life of poverty and obscurity - and then became a superstar in a faraway land without even knowing it. Sixto Rodriguez, a Mexican-American construction worker from Detroit, used to perform his songs in the city's small, smoky clubs in the late Sixties. Known simply as Rodriguez, he was a reclusive presence and performed with his back to the audience. "There was something mysterious about him," says one local who saW him back then. "He looked like a drifter." Still, two producers thought enough of Rodriguez to work with him on two albums, Cold Fact and Coming Pram Reality. One of the producers, Dermis Coffey, a respected Motown session musician, still compares his talent to Bob Dylan's. The albums were released but achieved pitifully small sales before disappearing without trace. In America, no one thought much more about Rodriguez after that. But a bootleg copy of COldFact ended up in South Africa, where it circulated among white Afrikaans Enigmatic: a YOUnctSlxto Rodriguez In the musicians fiercely opposed to apartheid. His documentary 'Searching for Sugar Man' songs, with titles such as TIreEstablishment . Blues, inspired ~em to speak out and that first tour, Rodriguez (backed by the protest against the government. local Afrikaans musicians who first spread Another song, Sugar Man, was banned on the word about him) played six sold-out the government-run radio station for its concerts in a 5,000-seat hall. Crowds went wild for him. And Cold Fact went platinum, drugavailable.references,Cold Factbutwashis distributedalbums wereon a selling half a million copies in South Africa. small South African label in 1991, and the But how good is he? His body of work is reputation of Rodriguez gradually spread. too slim to justify comparisons with Dylan, but his songs, rooted in folk and blues, are internSo didet days,the mythsthere aboutwas nohim.informationIn those pre• poetic, intimate and passionate. , from the United States about this long• Footage of those first concerts, and the fan hadforgottencommittedartist. Wordsuicide;wasa popularthat Rodriguezvariation frenzySearchingfl;rthey inspired,Sugar Man,can anbe SO-minuteseen in insisted he had set fire to himself on stage. documentary that is the culmination of These conjectures helped fuel his BendjellouI's efforts to tell the story of . phenomenal popularity in South Africa. Rodriguez. The film was shown in January Documentary film-maker Malik at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won Bendjelloul stumbled on the Rodriguez the documentary jury prize and audience story in 2006 while looking for subjects in award. It's been a labour of love for Cape Town to make seven-minute films for Bendjelloul, who continued making it alone Swedish TV. "I'd do vox pops on the street, for five years. "It was hard to keep going at and every other person knew and loved times," he said. "People promised money, Rodriguez," he recalls. "He was huge there then backed out." Bendjelloul cold-called - bigger than the Rolling Stones." British film producer Simon Chinn, who had But a decade earlier, two of his most success with the documentary films Man on fervent South African fans, Cape Town record store owner Steve Segerman and sayingWire andhe Projecthad a betterNim. "Hestoryleftfora amessagefilm than music journalist Craig Bartholomew, set out Man on Wire," Chinn says now. "There was to find out what happened to Rodriguez.• something about Malik. His enthusiasm was and specifically how he had died. infectious." Which is why Searching for Sugar The two men studied every Rodriguez Man has UK producers and is partly lyric to establish where he might have lived. financed by British film fund The Finally, Bartholomew decided to follow the Documentary Company .. money: if Rodriguez albums were selling in Rodriguez is an almost ethereal presence South Africa, where were the royalty. cheques going? In the end he visited throughoutstriking: slender,the film.withAshigha youngcheekbones,man he was America, where he met the other Cold Fact physical grace, enigmatic behind his shades. producer, Mike Theodore. The film confirms he still has great And finally the truth was revealed: presence. He'll be 70 next month: the same Rodriguez was alive - living in the same vintage as Dylan, McCartney and Jagger, but tumbledown house in a poor part of Detroit. without global fame all his adult life. He had three adult daughters. He still did Finally his work will be heard widely. construction work. He had become a Chinn says the film will be dishibuted in 15 community activist, and had made failed countries, and Rodriguez will be touring the attempts to run for mayor of Detroit and as world. Sony is re-releasing the first two a city councillor. albums wherever the film is shown. Bartholomew finally met Rodriguez and Fame seems unlikely to tarnish the an ecstatic Segerman spoke with the singer' . Rodriguez legend. "Even after we met, and from Cape Town in the middle of the night. I was filming him, he didn't really want to be Rodriguez knew nothing of his astonishing on camera," Bendjelloul says. "He never popularity in South Africa. said no, but he was hesitant. He's a shy, The next logical step was for him to mysterious guy." perform there. He flew in from the States with his daughters and was astonished to 'Searching for Sugar Man' will be screened at find a limousine awaiting him. More the Shejfkld Documentary festival this incredibly, cheering fans had made their evening, and at BFI Sauthbank on Saturday. way to the airport to herald his arrival. On It opens in cinemas on July 27