Song of the Day 8/11: Rodriguez, “Sugar Man”

Sixto Rodriguez, whose early ’70s albums gained little attention in the U.S. but found an overseas audience that fueled a late-career revival, died in his hometown of Detroit this week at age 81. He finally found fame in America a decade ago after being featured in an Oscar-winning documentary, “Searching for Sugar Man.”

The son of Mexican immigrants, Rodriguez began playing bars around Detroit in the late ’60s. Usually accompanied only by his acoustic guitar, he often played with his back to the audience, singing originals heavily influenced by early Dylan. He released two LPs that didn’t sell in the U.S. but did well enough in Australia that he toured that country in 1979 and 1981.

Though Rodriguez was unaware of it for decades, he was even bigger in South Africa, where his records were popular with anti-apartheid whites. His low public profile allowed myths to grow up around him – that he was dead, even that he had killed himself onstage. One fan there, a record store owner named Steve Segerman, set out to find the truth and found Rodriguez right where he’d always been.

That resulted in Rodriguez’s first rediscovery and successful tours of South Africa and Europe. A second, larger comeback resulted from the 2012 documentary that related the feel-good story of Segerman’s successful search, which reintroduced the singer to an American audience that seemed eager for a Dylanesque throwback. His once-overlooked albums sold hundreds of thousands of copies.

“Sugar Man” was the opening track of Rodriguez’s debut LP, “Cold Fact,” released in 1970.

Before his American breakout, Rodriguez had already made a comeback in Europe. The French magazine L’Express caught up with him when his LPs were rereleased in 2009 and he played a couple of songs for them.