local star BY CRAIG BARTHOLOMEW STRYDOM ‘The Moon is Hanging In the Purple Sky’, ‘Woman, Please Be Gone’, ‘I Wonder (How Many Times You’ve Had Sex)’… Like us, you probably know every searching word to every track on the album Cold Fact. But what you may not know is that a documentary telling the amazing story of two South Africans’ epic search to find Rodriguez is winning major Sugar documentary awards. RODRIGUEZ, ALSO CALLED for SIXTO (BECAUSE HE WAS THE SIXTH CHILD) WAS BORN TO MIDDLE CLASS MEXICAN PARENTS WHO MOVED TO THE STATES IN Man THE ’20S. generation of South Africans grew up to a soundtrack of Rodriguez. We were living in troubled times, and the anti-establishment poetry of his lyrics drew us in. We never knew that – instantly recognisable as his music was to us – Rodriguez was only famous in South STEVE ‘SUGAR’ Africa; he was completely unknown in the SEGERMAN WAS THE SA RECORD- rest of the world. Even more bizarrely, he SHOP OWNER AS A OBSESSED WITH had absolutely no idea that he was famous FINDING RODRIGUEZ anywhere. About Rodriguez himself, we AS BARTHOLOMEW knew nothing. Was he alive, or – as ru- STRYDOM. moured – had he killed himself on stage? South African music journalist Craig was sent to Klipdam Holpan Others are washing and ironing. Bartholomew Strydom spent years trying Primêr as one of only three My group of friends is philoso- to track down Rodriguez. This is his story. English-speaking boys. Built phizing around snacks of during the diamond rush, the Salticrax and tinned mussels. school had shrunk to a mere 26 In the distance, an Afrikaans A PERSONAL QUEST kids. During break, when other radio show broadcasts messages When Rodriguez – in the title track to his kids spun their tops, I would explore a Sunday, which means we have the of goodwill from girlfriends. In the second album – invited listeners to ‘climb the forgotten corners of the largely day off. My fellow soldiers have foreground, an audio cassette blasts up on my music’, little did he know the shuttered school, nurturing my dream carried their mattresses out into the out the latest craze, an album called journey it would entail for me. of becoming a detective. They didn’t sun to read the latest copy of Scope Cold Fact. And it is like nothing I He made that request in the early know that the pen I carried in my top magazine or, in the case of the very have ever heard before. ‘FOR SEGERMAN AND seventies, when I was still a long way off BARTHOLOMEW STRYDOM pocket was actually a telescope. nationalistic, a deadly dull SADF ‘Who is this?’ I ask. from climbing anything more than the odd [PICTURED HERE], IT’S magazine called Paratus (a common ‘Rodriguez.’ LIKE FINDING ELVIS ALIVE jacaranda tree. In fact, looking back, 1973 AND WELL AND READY Fast forward to 1984. My telescope joke at the time was that if the Border ‘What happened to him?’ was a bad year for me: it was the year I TO PERFORM AGAIN.’ is long gone; my curiosity is not. It’s didn’t kill you, Paratus would). ‘He blew his head off on stage –VIEWCAMBRIDGE.CO.UK

48 Fairlady|October 2012 Fairlady|October 2012 49 missing), I begin to explore the lyrics. Rodriguez’s words become a musical scavenger hunt, with few leads and many dead ends. Unlike other pop music, ‘IN SOUTH AFRICA I’VE WOKEN UP ON Rodriguez never really sang A MOUNTAIN RANGE about love in the ‘I love AND WONDERED WHERE I WAS! THAT you, you love me’ sense. KIND OF FEELING Instead, his lyrics are dense; I WRITE DOWN,’ RODRIGUEZ TOLD descriptive and cryptic. QTHEMUSIC.COM. It takes Sugar and me many months to finally track down Mike Theodore, the producer of Cold Fact, who tells us, in a second, that the artist we have been searching for for so long is not only not dead, but is alive and kicking and living in Detroit. It turns out that 1973 was a bad year for Rodriguez too. It was the year that he sold his guitar and traded in his dreams for the backbreaking reality of life as a construction worker. His music career had lasted less than I move back to South Africa just in three years. time for the country’s first general elections. I take a job at Look & I start writing the story. Assuming Listen in Hillbrow. It is a dangerous the man I was looking for is called after reciting the lines, “Thanks for time. A bomb goes off a few blocks Jesus Rodriguez, I call my first your time, and you can thank me for from the store. One night, while article, ‘Looking for Jesus’. South mine, and after that’s said, forget it.”’ pricing stock, I come across the Africa’s most political newspaper, My curiosity is piqued. I climb up newly released Rodriguez CD, which I thought would buy the story on his music. How can one not? Coming from Reality. I drop every- for sure, slams the phone down on thing to read the liner notes. But me: I have dared to ask for an extra It’s 1987, and I am on a train to there is no new information on the 25c per word. Fortunately for rock Brighton, England. I have a copy of singer – or his rumoured death. The and roll history, Directions magazine Q Magazine, in which there is a letter words fill a page, however, which is buys the piece and publishes it in from someone called John E more information than I have seen up 1997 as ‘Looking for Rodriguez’. Gainney, asking if anyone knows to this point. They have been written And then, somehow, as things in the what happened to the musician by one Stephen ‘Sugar’ Segerman, a internet age are wont to do, the known as Rodriguez. music junkie, it turns out, as obsessed article makes its way across the It reminds me of that day in the with the Rodriguez puzzle as I am. Atlantic and into the hands of Eva army. And so begins my physical ‘Are there any musicologist Rodriguez, the daughter of Sixto search through record stores, libraries detectives out there?’ he asks. Rodriguez. Shocked and surprised and book stores. Surprisingly, no one It’s like he is talking to me. that her construction worker dad is has heard of the man. actually famous in a parallel Four years of music school go by. In 1995, I make a list of articles universe, she in turn begins a reverse I sell up and move to Amsterdam. I would like to write. It includes, search for more information. She There, I continue my search for ‘Find out what happened to finds an item posted online by Sugar Rodriguez, but to no avail. How can Rodriguez’. The plan to track him and business partner Brian Currin – it be that someone so well known in down involves following the money old school, but it worked: it features South Africa can be so unknown trail – and when I discover that there the face of Rodriguez and the words, everywhere else? is no money trail (the money is still ‘Have you seen this man?’

50 Fairlady|October 2012 Normally, only die-hard No problem. In fact, with support all but dried up, and no food to speak cineastes sit through the of, Malik composes, edits and credits. But today the animates from his kitchen table. And entire theatre does. I can finally, with a finished film on his hear a pin drop. Then, laptop and the echo of slamming with a slow grounds- doors still reverberating in his head, well, people get up he manages to get Man on Wire producer Simon Chinn on the line. on their feet and begin Malik promises to tell him the to applaud. greatest story he’ll ever hear in under a minute. Simon comes on board. With contact made, I think this is the end of the story. But the money- Park City, Utah, is a sleepy ski men get involved, and next thing we village. But for a couple of weeks know it Rodriguez, like Lazarus, has each year it is home to the Sundance risen from the dead and is touring Film Festival. Searching for Sugar South Africa, performing to Man is opening the festival, and we disbelieving and ecstatic audiences. are on tenterhooks. What if it fails? Aside from telling my story at dinner What if we wake up to discover we parties, I put it all behind me. were dreaming? I am quite sure that no one in the audience has ever Maryland, 2008. It is one of those heard of Rodriguez. In fact, a days when you can cut the humidity percentage of Americans struggle to with a knife. The phone rings. It’s a point out South Africa on the map. Swedish filmmaker, Malik Ten minutes become 20, and then 80, Bendjelloul. He has tracked me and finally, as the last lonely credit down to talk about a documentary he fades to black, I realise that no one is making about Rodriguez. How has has walked out. Normally, only die- he found me? I have no idea. As far hard cineastes sit through the credits. as anyone knows, I had simply But today the entire theatre does. disappeared into the ether. In fact, I can hear a pin drop. Then, with a for a short while Malik and Sugar slow groundswell, people get up on had set up a website called their feet and begin to applaud. The ‘Searching for Bartholomew’. film is a resounding success, winning In a follow-up piece to ‘Searching accolades at Sundance, Moscow and for Rodriguez’, Directions magazine Los Angeles before it is even referred to me as ‘bloodhound released. ‘Climb up on my music,’ Bartholomew’. But if I am the wrote Rodriguez, ‘and from there bloodhound, Malik Bendjelloul is jump off with me.’ the terrier. Malik has fallen in love with the story and nothing will stop him from telling it. He simply will Where is he now? not give up. But I am sceptical: I Rodriguez is starting to perform think the story is old and dog-eared, regularly in the States and at music and I am weary of filmmakers with festivals around the world. He still grandiose plans and no money. But plays relatively small venues, but – just as deception (when I was trying because of the huge success of the

to follow the money trail) had been film – that’s all about to change. DER MERWE, COURTESY OF RODRIGUEZ, SUPPLIED L VAN È the red flag to my inner bull, the lack In August, CNN aired a feature of funding is the red flag to Malik. story on him, and he appeared as He lets nothing stand in his way. a guest on David Letterman’s No money for animation? No The Late Show. He is planning a problem. No cash for sound design? tour to Australia next year. PHOTOGRAPHS: AN

SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN opened at Cinema Nouveau on 31 August. It is absolutely compulsory viewing for all South Africans over 20.