Sixto Rodriguez: The Sugar Man Who Inspired a Revolution

Listen to the musical version of todays episode:
Listen along with us as we explore this story alongside the music that made this story all the more incredible.

In this episode of the Compendium, I’m thrusting Adam head first into the enigmatic world of Sixto Rodriguez. If you have never heard of this guy then your world is about to change. Rodrigues was the unsung hero whose music became the soundtrack for a revolution. His his journey from a Detroit musician to an icon in South Africa during the apartheid era is a story like no other! Today we unravel the mystery behind the man known as the Sugar Man. His album "Cold Fact" and its impact on the anti-apartheid movement, showing you first hand how music can transcend boundaries and ignite social change.

Discovering Rodriguez's story is like piecing together a fascinating puzzle. From the streets of Detroit to the heart of South Africa, we trace his influence and the surprising revelation of his unknown fame. Weaving together the keywords of Rodriguez, apartheid South Africa, and folk rock, this episode is a tribute to the power of music and the spirit of resistance. Rodriguez's legacy, epitomized in the "Searching for Sugar Man" documentary, is a testament to the enduring impact of art in shaping history.

We give you the Compendium, but if you want more, then check out these great resources:

1.  "Searching for Sugar Man" - Documentary
2.  "Cold Fact" - Album by Sixto Rodriguez
3. "Coming From Reality" - Album by Sixto Rodriguez
4. "The History of Apartheid in South Africa" - Educational Resource
5. "The Power of Protest Music in Social Movements" - Article
6. "Sixto Rodriguez: Biography and Discography" - Music Resource

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Credits:

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• Intro and Outro Music: Alice in dark Wonderland by Aleksey Chistilin
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Transcript

[EPISODE 50 CLEAN] Sixto Rodriguez's Cold Fact: The Album that Challenged Apartheid. 

Adam Cox: And the entire velodrome just erupts with screaming and cheering. And then the opening chords of I Wonder start strumming on the guitar and Adam, it is this really iconic, iconic song because for many South Africans, this record would have been the first time that anyone had ever heard the word sex on a record.

So it was huge. It was the biggest thing ever. So Rodriguez just walks out on stage and everyone is on their feet for 10 minutes. They are literally just screaming and shouting. And Regan was like, It was almost as if he did not need to play, like, just the sight of him would have been enough. And eventually, Rodriguez just timidly, 

Kyle Risi: Welcome to the compendium, an assembly of fascinating and intriguing things. We are a weekly variety podcast where each week I tell Adam Cox everything he needs to know about a topic I think he'll find both fascinating and intriguing. Stories from the darker corners of true crime to amazing historical events.

We meet some of the world's most incredible people, giving you just enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering. I'm your host this week, Kyle Recy. And I'm 

Adam Cox: your co host, Adam Cox. 

Kyle Risi: So Adam, in today's episode of The Compendium, we are diving into a soundtrack that sparked a revolution.

If you've clicked onto today's episode from Spotify or from Apple, Then this version won't include the five songs that we'll be featuring on today's episode You know because of like copyright reasons or whatever But if you want to listen along with the songs with us Then we've included a link to the second version of this episode in our show notes where you can enjoy every minute with us So let's get back to the show

Kyle Risi: Oh, is it like hippie revolution? Oh, you mean like the sexual revolution of 1969? 

Adam Cox: Yeah, summer of love, that kind of thing. 

Kyle Risi: So the story I'm sharing today is not just extraordinary, but it's also deeply personal. It's about a musician known as Rodriguez, who was this incredible, poetic, deeply enigmatic figure whose music became a revolutionary anthem for a generation of South Africans living through the incredibly oppressive realities of the apartheid regime in South Africa between 1948 right up to the 1990s.

And against all odds, this guy's music ended up becoming a beacon of hope and resistance against that very regime, inspiring millions of South Africans to then start thinking differently about the world that they were living in, teaching South Africans the power that can come with just thinking differently.

But, what makes this story even more incredible is that despite Rodriguez selling more records than Elvis Presley, he was completely unknown to everyone who was inspired by his music. All they knew was that he was this deeply tormented musician who committed suicide on stage while thousands of people watched in horror.

Really? I don't think I've ever heard about this before. Have you not? No. It's going to be a good one today because the reason why I picked today's episode is because this year, sadly, I lost my friend Candice to a fierce 16 month battle with cancer.

And just like me, Candice was this wild hearted child of the South African savannah, running alongside the graceful Cazel. on the African plains. She joined you out there. She did. And she too found a piece of her soul in Rodriguez's music. That's how famous he was. And, to me, Candice was just the most generous and kind person I've ever met.

She really helped me through a really difficult time in my life. And in part, our listeners owe this podcast to her because without her, maybe, maybe, The companion podcast wouldn't even exist. 

So in today's episode in honor of Candace, I'll be telling you the story of how two ordinary South Africans set out on a quest to discover the truth about who Sixto Rodriguez was and how he actually died and what they discover will shock a nation and it will also shock you too. And trust me when I say today's episode is a doozy and I promise You will never hear a story quite like this one in your entire 

Adam Cox: life. Wow. Okay, you built this up. I'm intrigued. 

Kyle Risi: So, the story I'm telling today is actually based on a really brilliant documentary called Searching for Sugarman. Have you heard of this before? No. So it was released in 2012, and it tells this incredible story through Rodriguez's music and the people that knew him.

And even if you're not a fan of his music, this story can absolutely stand on its own because it tells the story in such an incredibly heartwarming way. And it highlights the impact that music can have on the human condition. And since its release, it has won so many different awards. In fact, in 2013, it won the Academy Award for the best documentary feature.

But the crazy thing is even though it won the Academy Award, they ran out of money halfway through filming. So the rest of the film had to be recorded on their mobile phone. No way! No, and yet it still went on to win the Academy Award. Isn't that just incredible?

Cool. So Adam the mystery of how Rodriguez's music made it to South Africa is still quite a mystery And it's probably one that we will never definitively solve But it got into the country somehow and that is a massive deal

because Rodriguez's music, just like many other artists at the time, was completely prohibited because between 1948 until the early 1990, South Africa was governed by the National Party who enforced a stringent regime of conservatism and extensive censorship. 

And this meant that the government had a stronghold on all information coming in and out of the country. They controlled literally everything from the news that we watched, the books that we read, and even the music that we listened to.

the government was so authoritarian that television only made it to South Africa in 1976. And even then it was really highly controlled by the government. 

Adam Cox: Was it like living in a communist country then?

Kyle Risi: It wasn't because we had all the freedoms as a white South African. We had all the freedoms that you could think of. It was just really conservative. It's so difficult because when you're in it, you don't know that there's any difference, right? So it's hard to explain because that was just life.

We didn't feel like we were oppressed. and I'm talking from the white South African point of view, of course, it was way worse for black South Africans, but we didn't know that we were living under this really tightly controlled, regulated kind of society. 

And this system of authoritarian rule came with a set of policies called apartheid, whose entire framework was set up for the institutional racial segregation and oppression of millions and millions of black people living in South Africa. do you know anything about apartheid, by the way?

Adam Cox: From what I understand, it was like segregation, right? black South Africans had certain jobs and weren't able to mix with white South Africans.

Kyle Risi: That is correct. And the thing is though, that under these laws, black people were mercilessly uprooted from their homes and they were forced to relocate to various areas that were frankly like undeveloped or even just missing basic amenities. And if they ever wanted to step out of the confines of these areas to see relatives or go to work or anything, they were mandated by law to carry with them a passbook.

It's basically an internal passport. And. If they ever fail to show this passbook on demand, it was literally punishable by law. So it was really strict and apartheid also meant that black people, had zero political representation of any kind or even any economical opportunities. at best, the only jobs that were available to them were low paying jobs, like bin men, cleaners, or gardeners.

And. again, at the time, living in South Africa, that was just the norm, right? I remember when we first immigrated to the United Kingdom in 1999, my first bin day collection was a huge culture shock because the very first thing that we noticed was that every single bin man that was Collecting all the bins, they're all white. Mm-Hmm. And I'd never seen that before because I'd never seen a white person working in a service job. Like being a binman or a delivery driver or a shop worker. So there were certain jobs that were considered to be for black people, essentially.

Adam Cox: And you mentioned black people being uprooted and moved to certain areas. Is that how sort of townships were created or did they exist before? 

Kyle Risi: I don't really know a huge amount about it I think if they were segregated to this particular area, then yeah.

And when you talk about these townships, these are townships that they would pretty much making their own. They weren't supplied with housing, right? So they were made from bits of corrugated iron. They would find a few bricks and cements, and they would like literally build their own shacks, essentially.

Adam Cox: Yeah. I remember when we went to South Africa many years ago and we went around Nelson Mandela's house before he was obviously as famous as he was. And his house was very, I guess humble. Oh my god, Adam. 

Kyle Risi: Nelson Mandela's house, that was nothing compared to what was out there, right? Right, okay.

And the thing is though like under apartheid They also had very little access to any education or any health care and any hint of resistance Against the apartheid regime would often lead to kind of violent beatings or even punishment 

But on the flip side like life for white South Africans was just a complete world apart the apartheid system was literally rigged in favor of providing them with higher standards of living, education, healthcare, and of course, they got all the economic opportunities that were available to them.

So it was like night and day. And again, this is the reason when you ask me about the townships and I'm like, I don't always know the answers about what life was like on the other side. And that's because life for both black and white South Africans was never lived together.

Our lives only ever crossed. through paths of authority or through service, right? If they were your cleaner, if they were your gardener, or they were delivering something to you or collecting your bins, that's the only time our lives really crossed. And I think by the time, South Africa, ended apartheid, I was maybe eight years old, maybe slightly younger.

So I was still very young. but this entire system was set up to prevent apartheid from ever coming to an end. And this is why the regime evokes such stringent censorship laws because they didn't want to inspire anyone to challenge that status quo. And to revolt. And this is why it's such a big deal when I say that Rodriguez's music made it to South Africa.

Because if that was any other country, it would be like a big deal. Yeah. Someone just brought it in, right? But when we're talking in the context of South Africa against a backdrop of apartheid, it's a huge deal. 

Adam Cox: And did his music appeal to all black or white? 

Kyle Risi: So the thing is though, I'm not here to tell the story of the black uprising against apartheid.

Hmm. This is very much a story about Rodriguez's music and how it fitted in within the overall cog of kind of spurring the anti apartheid movement. This isn't to say that his music directly brought apartheid to an end, no, but it was a moving part of it all when you look at the greater context of it all.

So, the rumour of how Rodriguez's music got into the country goes that an American girl was visiting her boyfriend in South Africa. And she brings with her a copy of Rodriguez's first album. Cold. Fact. And her boyfriend and his friends, they absolutely love this album, but they couldn't find it anywhere in South Africa.

So they make a copy of this album and from there it just germinates throughout the rest of the country pretty 

Adam Cox: quickly. So people are just like copying. Could you even copy CDs? I guess you could. It wasn't 

Kyle Risi: even a CD. It would have been like tapes or records, right? It was a record. Yeah. Yeah. So it was one of those PVC records that they would make a copy of.

How they did that, I have no idea. And Rodrigues album, Cold Facts, like it is incredible. Nobody at the time had ever heard anything like it. And it had a kind of like these really deep. Moving, introspective kind of lyrics that are perfectly blended folk and rock. And people would compare his lyrics to that of Bob Dylan.

With kind of this haunting narrative quality. And, oh my god, Adam, his voice is just so raw and so honest and so angsty. It's just really, really beautiful.

Do you know any, music by Bob Dylan? 

Adam Cox: Probably, but I don't know if I'd be able to, recall it that easily. if you said, oh, this is Bob Dylan, I'd go, oh yeah, I've heard this.

Kyle Risi: But his music wasn't just about the sound, it was the message too, because it tackled really raw themes like poverty, urban decay, politics, sex and drugs, but not in the way that kind of glorified it, it was always about the space. About kind of the pain that was behind that and it was these messages and these themes and the way that they were presented kind of connected with so many different South Africans that were living in South Africa at the time. 

So after germinating throughout South Africa his music just started to kind of cause a stir because for the first time people were being provided with a completely different perspective on the world and more importantly it came with this message that it was okay to stand up and speak out against your government. And they'd never heard this kind of message before. 

Adam Cox: Right, so that was in his lyrics, 

Kyle Risi: was it? Yeah, like, and we'll go through some of the lyrics later on. You'll kind of get an example of what I'm talking about when these little lyrics that were written for a different time of a different place, but they just seem to resonate with ordinary people.

Adam Cox: And I guess also for a different, um, audience, because he's American, right? And so, he's speaking, I guess, maybe from his own American experience. 

Kyle Risi: That is exactly it, yeah. So like in the 1970s, if you ever went to a friend's house and flipped through their vinyl records, you would always find Abbey Road by the Beatles, you would always find Bridge Over Troubled Waters by Simon and Garfunkel, and you'd always find Colfax by Rodriguez.

At the time he was literally more famous than Elvis and the Rolling Stones combined. That's how huge he was. So in the documentary we meet a guy called Stephen. Sugarman, no relation. Sugarman. Sugarman. It's Afrikaans for Sugarman.

Oh, okay. Fine. But no relation. It's complete coincidence that his name is also the name of the documentary. That is strange. It is strange. 

So. Stephen talks about what life was like living under the apartheid regime as a white person and he talks about how like blind most white people were to what was going on in the country because South Africa was completely closed off to the rest of the world due to obviously the government censorship.

So outside perspectives from the rest of the world just never made it across our borders ever. And he says that South African musicians were never allowed to leave the country and nor were any musicians ever allowed to come into South Africa.

Yeah, it was really closed off for a period of time. So like countries around the world were obviously very vocal about their criticism against the apartheid government. Because as you kind of kind of see what's going on in Israel at the moment, where a lot of people are angry about what's happening.

 And that's exactly the same thing that was happening in South Africa at the time. The only difference is people living in South Africa didn't know that.

Adam Cox: Wow, that's so strange. It's almost like you're living in a bubble, right?

Kyle Risi: You are 100 percent living in the bubble.

So yeah, countries around the world, were very vocal about that criticism, but people in South Africa, they had no idea, and they just didn't have that perspective that comes with that free exchange of ideas. And remember, television didn't come to South Africa until 1976. That's really late in the game.

Adam Cox: And then would you have, um, foreign TV in South Africa at that point? Can you remember, like, EastEnders? That's usually sold pretty 

Kyle Risi: much everywhere. Well, we had, like, um, Days of Our Lives. Oh, okay. Obviously, if you're familiar with Friends, then that's actually a real soap opera. But the thing is we were literally 20 years behind. Right. So we didn't ever get to see anything that was up to date. It was always old reruns. 

And like in the documentary, Stephen says that during apartheid, like white South Africans, they knew deep down inside that what was going on in the country was wrong on some level. But the thing is, though, speaking out was a huge risk because the government was so tight on controls that even whispering against them could potentially land someone in jail for up to three years if you were a white South African.

Really? So there wasn't a huge amount that many people could do. And if you did, you were an activist, which is great because there's a time and place for that. But ordinary South Africans. They just didn't. it was just the norm. Do you know what I mean? It's really difficult to articulate. Guess they didn't know better, in a way.

We didn't know better because that freedom of exchange of information and ideas just wasn't allowed within South Africa. but when Colfax starts making the rounds, it begins to strike a chord with a small group of Afrikaans musicians.

And they see a way that they can start to fight back against the regime. And they decide that they're going to be doing this through music. Because when television finally came to South Africa, it was a big deal and the South African Broadcasting Corporation or the S.

A. B. C. for short, just like we would say the BBC, they would broadcast these really kind of intense It Apartheid theme speeches by the president at the time, but inspired by kind of that rebellious spirit of Rodriguez's music, a bunch of anti apartheid songs just started popping up kind of on the circuit and a popular song at the time was called Set it off, which basically translates to just turn it off, just turn it off and basically was telling people that they didn't have to listen to the propaganda they could Just turn it off turn off the tv everything.

Yeah, And so throughout the apartheid uprising colfax was more than just an album. It was that subconscious Anthem that set the wheels of a revolution in motion. And it quite literally gave people, both black and white, the courage to start thinking differently, to challenge that status quo, saying that it's okay to question, it's okay to push back against what your society is telling you.

So across South Africa, his music is just completely banned because of what it was inspiring. 

Adam Cox: so the government had conned on to the fact that this was dying to, I don't know, heat up when people were looking at them because of this music was saying, you need to question 

Kyle Risi: what we say.

That's right. Yeah. And I mean, some of these songs were already banned because they already touched upon, themes of sex and violence, which again, in a conservative country as well, they just weren't allowed. a huge hit of his at the time. And one of Candice's and my favourites was called Sugarman. 

 So if you listen to the lyrics, Waiting for his dealer. As in like a drug dealer? Yeah, and basically he wants him to help him escape the reality that he's living at that time. And it's clear that this is a commentary about the harsh realities of life in the inner city.

But again, because the song was about drugs , essentially, it just wasn't allowed in the country because we were so conservative. So it was just banned.

Adam Cox: Do you know what? The song sounds familiar. I don't know if I've actually heard it before, or whether it was just that sort of style at the time, and the people, you know, Bob Dylan, you mentioned, he's compared to. Maybe it's that, but There's almost a familiarity.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, the bizarre thing is that so many people that you speak to about this particular song always say that exact same thing. It's familiar, but they can't place it. It's difficult for me to be able to kind of respond to that because I grew up with the song and it's so iconic. People who have never heard this music before, they say it sounds like something they've heard before.

Adam Cox: Yeah, I mean, it could have been on like a soundtrack to like a TV show or a film, you know, and that's probably just stuck. But it's a really nice melody actually. It's a 

Kyle Risi: beautiful melody. It's really haunting, isn't it? Yeah.

The government had this really gross habit of brutally gouging, prohibited records with a knife, which meant that if you ever did try to play it on a record, it would just sound like a hot mess.

Adam Cox: So, they would go around and just, like, scratch it. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah.

So, for example, there would be, because a record would come with, let's say ten songs on it, right? Yeah. and they would say, okay, this song's not appropriate. So they would mark it as void, and then you'd know that there was either, the whole thing was either prohibited or there was a track on there that wasn't allowed.

It was just a single track like this one, the first track of the album, that they grabbed a knife and they just scratched the very first track. 

Adam Cox: Really? So someone had gone and done that to every single 

Kyle Risi: record? Yeah, especially if it was for the SABC, right?

Right. So on the playing on radio stations and whatever. they would have been censored in that way. and they could have been prohibited from being owned as well. So they didn't sell them because no one had a license to distribute them, but they would kind of just be distributed through the underground.

Wow. But as you know, when you prohibit something, it just makes it even more desirable. And so the popularity of the album just grew underground.

Adam Cox: Yeah, well, um, people like things that they can't have. of course. You're terrible at it. I say, no, you can't have that chocolate. And you just keep going on about it. 

Kyle Risi: I just want it even more, right? So in the documentary, Stephen says that by the 1990s, him and his friends have been enjoying Rodriguez's music for around 20 years.

But one day while he was just relaxing with a friend who was visiting from Los Angeles, she asks him where she can buy a copy of Colfax to take back to America with her, because she couldn't find it anywhere in the States because nobody had heard of him over there. 

That's weird. That is weird. So, this really surprises Stephen because he just assumed that his music would be popular everywhere, especially in the USA, where he is actually from, right?

so Stephen goes back home, he pulls out his copy of Colfax, and he realises that other than the cover image of Rodriguez sitting cross legged, like wearing sunglasses and a hat, there is nothing really on the record that told him who Rodriguez was or even where he was from?

Adam Cox: Oh really? So there's hardly any photography of this guy anywhere because you mentioned like the Beatles you had records of them like you must must know who the Beatles looked like at that 

Kyle Risi: age. Yeah, yeah, the only image that we had was this album cover from Colfax and then later his second album, but that's the only information that we knew.

Mystery. All he had to go on was the name 6 2 Rodriguez, but. When he looks at the tracks on the sleeve, six of those are credited to Jesus Rodriguez and four of those are credited to six prints? So what is it? Is there two people producing this album? Is it just the one person? Why are there these two names on there and why the amalgamation of 6 2 Rodriguez?

Do you know what I mean? So he got to wondering who wrote these songs and just who were Jesus Rodriguez and 6th Prince? 

So Stephen starts to go through the lyrics of the album for any clues as to who Rodriguez was. and where he might be from because he was certain that he was American.

So hearing that nobody had heard of him in the States just didn't make any sense to him at all. So he notices the lyrics born in the troubled city, also in rock and roll USA, and in the shadow of the tallest building. And he's like, is this referring to New York? But then he finds another lyric that is all about a hotel room in Amsterdam.

So he's that's not right. And then again, he reads another one that says going down a dusty Georgian side road. So maybe he's from Georgia. Yeah, 

Adam Cox: I guess there's a few. The other ones he could have just been on holiday. 

Kyle Risi: Possibly, yeah, I mean he could have travelled.

Yeah. So none of these lyrics give any concrete clues as to where Rodriguez was from. So Stephen sets up an online forum that is completely dedicated to finding out anything on Rodriguez. And on the front of the website is a milk carton with Rodriguez's face on it with the words Wanted have you seen this guy written across it and it's a proper like 1990s website really shit 

But he thinks that maybe there is someone out there who knows him or has more information on him because after all he was probably the most famous person in South Africa 

but sadly several years go by and he gets nothing nobody seems to know anything about Rodriguez other than what they already knew which was that he had committed suicide and the story goes that a promoter had gotten Rodriguez a gig at a concert And Rodriguez was like really excited, he was hoping that this was going to be his big break.

But during the set, the venue wasn't great, the acoustics were off, and people in the crowd started jeering and booing him. So apparently Rodriguez just finishes his song titled Forget It, he pulls out his gun, and just shoots himself in the head. And that is literally all we knew about this man, Rodriguez.

Adam Cox: So that's the rumour that was circulating in South Africa. What a, that's a horrendous rumour. But I guess you wouldn't have seen any like visual proof that this happened. I guess you'd believe it. 

Kyle Risi: We couldn't chase it up or anything. But that's all we knew. We just. Assume that he was dead. 

So by 1996, two years after apartheid had finally been dismantled, a South African record label decided to re release Rodriguez's second album to CD. And this album was called Coming From Reality. It was originally released in 1971 and because the record label thought that Stephen, the guy who set up the website, knew a lot about him, they asked him if he would like to write the liner notes within the booklet of the CD.

Do you remember CD's used to come with those little booklets? Yeah, it's always nice to have something 

Adam Cox: to 

Kyle Risi: read. It is! And they would typically contain information about the artist or the musicians and also the lyrics and things 

Adam Cox: like that. So you can sing along. That's it. Because it's really hard to learn the lyrics these days of songs 

Kyle Risi: without those booklets.

I know, right? Back in the day you were constantly having to stop and start and then write down the lyrics yourself? This is how you misheard the lyrics.

Adam Cox: Yeah, and you'd go years singing lyrics that you thought you heard and then you find out that's not it.

Kyle Risi: What are some of the craziest misheard lyrics? 

Adam Cox: I'm trying to think. The one that always sticks in my mind that I always made up was one by Take That. And their song It Only Takes a Minute Girl. And I always thought they were singing It Only Takes Salt and Vinegar.

I thought that for years. Really? Yes, that it only takes some salt and 

Kyle Risi: vinegar. 

Do you remember, um, You Sexy Thing by Hot Chocolate? Yes. The lyric was, I believe in miracles, but people used to think it was, I remove umbilicals. 

Adam Cox: Why did people think that and go, oh yeah, this is a good song to sing about?

That's, that's terrible.

Kyle Risi: And then of course, my favorite one was the one with Will Smith, getting jiggy with it. Yeah. It was, uh, kick a chicken with it. Kick a chicken. 

Adam Cox: I don't think I heard that one.

 Celine Dion. Mm hmm. Uh, My Heart Will Go On. People thought she was singing, I believe that the hot dogs go on. 

Kyle Risi: Really? It's such a serious song. Why would you think that? That's stupid. No one would think that. 

Adam Cox: True. or how about the one from Adele? where she's singing about chasing pavements?

Mm hmm. People thought she was singing about chasing penguins. Ha! 

Kyle Risi: It could happen. Maybe penguins is like kind of a metaphor for kind of some, some heartbreak. Well, yeah, 

Adam Cox: they can run or waddle quite fast. And if they managed to slip on their belly, then I reckon they can get away pretty quick. 

Kyle Risi: Moving on!

So the South African record company, they contact Stephen to see if he'll write kind of the liner notes, but Stephen doesn't know anything. So this is what he writes in the booklet. There is no air of intrigue and mystery around Rodriguez anywhere else in the world. Because his two albums, Cold Fact and Coming From Reality, were monumental flops. Everywhere else in the world. There is no concrete facts about the artist known as Rodriguez. And then Stephen writes, detectives out there? And then so the CD just gets distributed without an actual bio. 

Adam Cox: So, this guy just wasn't famous anywhere else and still didn't know much more about him.

Kyle Risi: No, exactly, but he is the most famous person in South Africa. So who is he? More famous than Elvis. More famous than Elvis and the Rolling Stones put together. So, who is this guy? 

Adam Cox: It must be some guy. It's not like a front or something, like a make believe. 

Kyle Risi: Like an AI artist, or the equivalent of.

Adam Cox: Do you remember like the gorillas, where it was like a front? Oh yeah! And actually there was another artist behind them , you know, what 

Kyle Risi: people see. I mean, it's possible that people probably thought that, but the thing is though, what a disappointment if that was the case.

But , he must have been real, there was a real voice. It's just bizarre. So now we're going back to the 1970s real quick. Because there is a young journalist named Craig Bartholomew Strydom. What a brilliant name.

 So he was basically just sitting around with a few friends. They were just chatting shit when one of his friends just casually asks, like, How did Rodriguez die? And amongst his friends at the time, nobody seemed to really know.

Like, they just had a bunch of rumours that they had heard over the years, which of course included the famous, suicide story, but also that he had died from a heroin overdose, or that he went to jail after murdering his wife, or that he had set himself. on fire in protest by pouring petrol all over him. Why are these 

Adam Cox: all horrendous ways to go? It's quite strange how all these deaths, it's not oh, yeah, he died of a heart attack or anything like that.

People have made up, or at least spread these rumours of a horrific death. 

Kyle Risi: Maybe it's because of the fact that he stood as this beacon of resistance and hope. And because he is a hero, he must have gone out in the most extraordinary way. What about if I said like, Oh, the most inspirational kind of artist of our generation. Oh yeah, he just went to a retirement home and he just faded away.

Adam Cox: It's true, it's those that kind of have a, either go too early, or have a tragic death. They kind of almost stick in our minds a little bit more.

So I guess that's it. And it's also adds to his notoriety. If he's so famous, then this kind of, I don't know, this kind of legend, urban legend of what happened to him. 

Kyle Risi: I think so, yeah.

so at the time, Craig was looking for some ideas to write some articles about, he had this list that he was making kind of a note of potential topics, so he pulls out this little list, and he writes, find out how Rodriguez died , and he just forgets about it for 20 years.

Adam Cox: 20 years? Yeah. So this investigation's been going 

Kyle Risi: on that long? Well, no, the investigation hasn't started. That's when he was just sitting around and he was like, I'm gonna find out about how he died.

Until one day he comes across the re release of Rodriguez's album, Coming From Reality. You know, the one with the liner notes that Stephen had written, right? Yes. Where it said, there is no concrete facts about the artist known as Rodriguez.

Are there any musicologist detectives out there? And straight away he remembers that list that he had written all those years ago, and he says to himself, it's time. I'm going to find out how Rodriguez died. I'm going to write 

Adam Cox: myself a to do list, and I'm going to put it in a drawer. And I'm going to get out in 10 years.

I'll get round to it. I'm going to pick up like, you know, cutting the grass or something. 

Kyle Risi: But the thing is though, life gets in the way, doesn't it? So I can understand why that would happen. So he starts doing a bunch of research and everything that he tries, he just keeps hitting a dead end. So he decides that he is going to, as they say in quotation marks, follow the money. 

Because Rodriguez's album was now legal in South Africa, right? It's the 1990s, apartheid had ended. So royalties must have been getting paid. To someone yeah, but every lead that he follows up on just gave extremely vague information or wouldn't give him a straight answer at all. 

Eventually, someone does give him a number, which he calls up and he leaves a message explaining that he's writing an article on Rodriguez and would appreciate if someone could give him a call back, but nobody does. And when he calls back, that number is disconnected. Oh. So he smells a rat. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, so people have, like, don't want him to follow up 

Kyle Risi: anymore. Sniffing around, right? That's probably it. What did Rodriguez do? So he starts kind of going into private investigator mode, right?

And he's writing out all the different links in the mystery working out all the various touch points, all the record companies and the people that had dealings with Rodriguez's albums over the years.

And he gets into contact with a guy called Robbie Mann from RPM Records in South Africa. And these guys are the first company to distribute Rodriguez's first album, Cold Fact. And he tells Cray that Rodriguez at the time was their best selling artist. we are talking platinum selling artists ten times over. He was that massive. 

And he says that we were 100 percent paying royalties and those cheques were all being made out to a company called Sussex Records. But that is all he knew about it. Right, okay. 

So next Craig then speaks to a record label that distributed Rodriguez's second album and they say the same thing, right?

Rodriguez was huge for them, even outselling the Rolling Stones. And Craig asks if they'd ever tried to contact Rodriguez directly and they just say, Why would we try and contact someone who was dead? Oh, okay. They say, but we were paying royalties, and that was to a company called Sussex Records.

Adam Cox: Okay, so who is Sussex Records then? 

Kyle Risi: That's it. All paths seem to be linking back to Sussex Records in America, specifically to a guy called Clarence Avant, who owned Sussex Records at the time. But the problem was that Sussex Records closed in 1975. So every time that Craig tried to speak to anyone that worked there. Or had a connection with Sussex Records. He just kept getting shut out. He got nothing. 

So something weird is going on, right? Yeah. So Craig decides that maybe Stephen might be able to help point him in the right direction. So he flies out to Cape Town. They have a chat. Stephen gives him all the information that he has.

But he's just not got enough. And Craig starts to think that maybe he's reached his final dead end. Until one day by accident, Craig is listening to Rodriguez's album, specifically. A song called Inner City Blues. 

Adam Cox: So in this song. Craig hears the line, I met a girl in Dearborn. Six o'clock in the morn, a cold fact. Which is also where we get the name of the album, and I just love it when that happens. It's like when you're watching a film and they say kind of the title of the movie.

 I love the song because, as well as obviously the clue, I met a girl in Dearborn. It also just has these brilliant lyrics which really emphasises what life was like in South Africa under apartheid. Because there's a line in the song that says, 'Cause Papa don't allow no new ideas.

And now you hear the music, but the words don't sound so clear. So I can 100 percent see how this would speak to a generation of South Africans who are under strict censorship and oppression. I see, yeah. So PAPA obviously being the government, not allowing you ideas, and then when you finally do get them, like, how do you receive their information?

Does it make sense to you? Yeah. Some people it did, but then it germinates. Yeah. And I think that's just so beautiful. That's interesting how, obviously, With any kind of music or art, you have that interpretation and that's obviously not what he is talking about. He's talking about just a relationship and his relationship with the girl's father or whatever.

Correct. But the thing is though, there's always parallels, right? There's always overlaps and there's very clearly an overlap here with what life was like in South Africa, which is crazy. I bet he had no idea he was being political.

Kyle Risi: anyway, it dawns on Craig that he's never followed up on Dearborn as a potential lead so he grabs out his atlas and he finds Dearborn on the map and it's near Detroit, Michigan. This leads him to a guy called Mike Theodore who is the guy who actually produced Rodriguez's first album Colfact.

So Craig calls Mike Theodore up and they have this really long conversation where Craig tells Mike this amazing story about how Rodriguez's album has sold millions of copies across South Africa and how his music had inspired millions of people during the apartheid era and Mike is like What the fuck man?

Are you sure we're talking about the same Rodriguez here? And Craig is like just super excited He's just like bamboozling him with like a hundred questions. what did he mean when he wrote this lyric? Why did he record the album? what was he like in person? remember Craig had been holding on to this information for like 20 years so you can understand his excitement And in this moment, it's just really funny because I imagine him being just like my nephew Matthew, who'd like, ask you a million questions, then after each one he would just be like, why?

Why? But why? So, like, I get that sense, he's a real excited kind of child in this moment. Yeah, I guess he's finally found something that's, or someone that's connected, right? And so he's, he's, after all this time, he's, he's getting somewhere. Exactly. And then with Mike, then, so he's saying, like, what, what are you talking about?

I know nothing of, Rodriguez's success, but he produced the first album. He did. But. The music or record companies in South Africa are saying, yeah, the royalties went back to Sussex, but you've got to remember the producer is not the record label.

Yeah, I guess so, but I would have thought he would be getting some royalties. So it sounds like that he never got any money from this as well. Yeah, but 100%. Mm-Hmm. 

The thing is though, Craig finally gets to the one question that he wanted to know the most.

He says, Mike, tell me, how did Rodriguez die? Did he really blow his brains out on stage? Or did he set fire to himself on stage and protest? tell me, what is the dramatic story here? And Mike is like, what do you mean dead? he is not dead. Six toe Rodriguez is alive.

He's alive? And he's living here in Detroit. 

And so, Craig is just floored. And so when he gets off the phone, he calls Stephen immediately and Stephen just cannot believe it because for years both of them have been searching for any information on how he died and they never banked on him still being alive.

I guess not. I mean, if there's all these rumours of him being dead, why would you ever think he's dead somehow, whatever it might be? Yeah. That's so weird. So what is going on then? he's, this guy is alive and well and But no one seems to know that he was famous. Yeah, exactly. It's bizarre. And I guess, like, when you consider the backdrop of what happened during apartheid, when those questions cropped up, oh, he blew his brains out, the time for questioning that was then.

Yeah. Right? And so much time went by that then everyone forgets that oh actually did we question this time because we didn't have the option to question it at the time but now we do, no one had the sense to go let's go and check this out until 1996. Yeah, yeah. So I get it, I get how these things could happen.

So in 1997 Craig writes his article and it is titled Looking for Jesus. And somehow, it makes it all the way over to America. In particular, it falls into the hands of a woman called Eva. At first, she's really confused by the article. So she does a bit of research and she stumbles across Stephen's website.

And she posts a message that says something along the lines of, Sometimes a fantasy is better left a lie. Are you sure you want to know about Rodriguez? I am Eva. And Rodriguez is my father. Ooh. What? Ooh, scandal. Scandal. 

What a strange message to say, Do you really want to know? I'm about to burst your bubble.

Well, I think it's more like, Do you really want to know about my father? Like Like, my dad? Like, him? Me? Yeah! Have you met him? I think that's kind of more of the tone that I get the sense of. 

But, I could have easily told her like, Are you sure you want to know about my father? I just, I guess it's quite, Yeah, there's obviously this kind of, normality or something mundane, as if to say I'll tell you about my dad, but be prepared because I'm gonna shatter this illusion you have.

Yeah, I think you've just foreshadowed what's about to come with that little response, which is very good. So she leaves her contact details and the next day the phone rings and it's Stephen calling. They have this amazing chat where Eva tells him everything about her father and Eva just can't believe.

When she hears that her father is this huge star in South Africa because her reality of her father Was a complete polar opposite So she just doesn't believe it. So Stephen asked can I speak to Rodriguez himself Someday, And Eva's just let me see what I can do. So later that night, Stephen's phone rings. It's 1am in the morning. When he answers, it's Rodriguez on the other end of the phone. And they chat for a while.

And like, instantly he recognizes that voice that he's recognized from his records over all these years, right? Sure, yeah. So Stephen tells him like, you know that you are bigger than Elvis here in South Africa, right? And Rodriguez just doesn't know what to say. perhaps he thinks that Steven is lying or maybe this is some kind of cruel prank call.

But he doesn't say anything in that moment. Nothing. He's just completely silent. So Steven gets a sense that maybe he's about to hang up on him. So he just says, listen, come to South Africa and I promise you, you will not be disappointed. And Rodriguez just says, Okay.

Yeah, can you imagine, just, you did this work however many years ago, and it sounds like it didn't obviously take off in the US, and then he's been told that he is this South African superstar. How would you take that? I don't know, that's the thing, they, we'll find out what Rodrigo says in a minute, because we interview him, we get to speak to him about We?

Not we. Oh, okay. They, in the documentary. Got me excited, Kyle. But yeah, they get to interview him and like, you're exactly right. How would you respond?

So let me tell you a bit about Rodriguez now that we know that he is alive, right? Mm hmm. So Sixto Diaz Rodriguez. He was born on the 10th of July 1942 in Detroit, Michigan he was the sixth child of a family of Mexican immigrant workers and his parents had moved to the United States from Mexico in the 1920s.

So when Rodriguez was just three sadly his mother dies and then they moved to Detroit where his father could find work as a laborer and growing up like life was really tough for the family living in the inner city limits of Detroit especially since they were from like an immigrant family so they were already faced with a lot of prejudice anyway.

And this stigma ended up really shaping his worldview. So from an early age like he was really interested in music and his instrument of choice was of course the guitar and he had just this amazing talent for songwriting and as we said before it was like so deeply poetic and really drew on these themes of hardship and political injustice and the struggles of just the working class in his area.

Like he really connected with that part of Kind of poverty in Detroit. So when he was old enough, he does start to kind of go out and start gigging on his own And he would drift between the various bars across Detroit But at the time he was just so incredibly shy even when he was performing Like you always hear of these really shy withdrawn artists, but when they get up on stage They just completely transform and just like come to life Yeah, I've heard like Brandon Flowers from The Killers is a bit like that. Is he? Yeah, apparently he's a bit weird in real life. Oh really? He is a showman when he's on stage.

But this isn't the case for Rodriguez. he would often play in really dimly lit venues on purpose. And very often, in fact, a lot of the time, he would play with his back to the audience. He wouldn't look at them. That's weird, right? Yeah, I don't know any musician that would do that. It's very strange.

And he also wore, these really big, thick sunglasses, and the thing is that when an artist does that, unless you're Stevie Wonder, you know, to me that's a barrier. You're creating a barrier. I always feel a little bit more confident when I have my sunglasses on, rather than, not having anything on.

Do you know what I mean? yeah, but then people can't see into your eyes. They can't, maybe relate or see the emotion in some way. Well the thing is though, you say that because a lot of people say that the fact that he would play with his back turned to the audience forced you to listen to the lyrics rather than kind of watch the performance. 

Yeah, I mean, can you imagine Ariana Grande doing that though? And we just go, let's just listen to her lyrics about I mean, her lyrics are not great. They're not great. I mean, they're fine. But so I mean, would we appreciate her lyrics differently if she wasn't whipping her ponytail back and forth? It's true. 

So one night in 1967, Rodriguez is gigging at a really smokely, dim, lit bar and you can like literally barely see anything. And Mike is there. Remember Mike Theodore, the guy who produced the first album? That was the one that Craig was chatting to on the phone. 

So, Rodriguez gets up on stage. He's got his back to the audience and he's just strumming on his guitar. And all of a sudden, this incredible, soulful, like, voice just blares out into the audience and Mike is like, Whoa. And he's like, never heard a voice like this before.

So afterwards they speak and Mike really wants to do an album with him. And in the documentary, when they speak to people who knew Rodriguez, they describe him as this kind of weird wanderer just around the city People just assumed that he was homeless and drifting from shelter to shelter I was getting that vibe when you describe again was like is he a bit of a hobo?

Yeah, in a way he is. I mean he didn't have a place to stay Yeah, but even Mike says every time they would meet up to talk Like, it would always be on some street corner, like, some kind of random drug deal. Oh right, so he's finishing a drug deal, and it's like, Have you got time to chat about that record we're making?

Yeah, exactly. So eventually they do make this incredible album, and it is called Cold Fact. And everyone in the music industry who hears this album, is betting that Rodriguez is going to be the biggest star that we've ever produced in the world. Wow. There is no question that this album is impeccable.

But when it's released, Adam, it's just a major flop. And nobody can understand why. Like, my question's whether or not they promoted it enough. Maybe Rodriguez didn't do enough performances. Maybe it's because he, performed with his back to everyone. Or maybe he was just to political but nobody could understand why this album just was not connecting with the American people.

So how well did it sell? they estimate six copies. Six copies? Six copies of his album. And so, okay, so I remember you said there's six copies and there was that woman that brought it to South Africa so I'm assuming that she was one of those people. Yeah! And so what a coincidence that she had bought that, gone to South Africa, and then I'm guessing it's been copied and copied over and over again.

How weird, what a weird coincidence. And by the way, that story about how it got to South Africa, not to burst your bubble there but that was just a rumour. Oh. I did say at the very beginning the rumour goes that's how the music got into it, so we don't know for sure.

Is this just a podcast of lies? It's one of the biggest mysteries of South African kind of pop culture. Right, okay. Sorry, I thought that bit was true. But if that is true. Yeah. If that is true, then that is exactly what happened. either way, out of those six copies that were sold, in America. Yeah.

Which we're saying is true. Yes. Someone, one of those people that bought that, somehow, there's a chain of events that got that to them. That is right. Isn't that crazy?

But the thing is, they weren't ready to give up. So, Rodriguez is introduced to a guy called Steve Rowland. And at the time, he was this big Hollywood actor turned producer and Steve loved Colfax, right?

And he just also couldn't understand just what went wrong there. So he decides that he wants to produce his second album and that's coming from reality. So Steve had previously worked with artists like The Cure, Boney M, Gloria Estefan, and a bunch of others, right? Some big names. Huge names. So people thought that Steve was going to be the guy that's going to get Rodriguez off the ground.

But again, when they release, coming from reality, it does absolutely nothing. nothing. Surely there would be some sort of promo team pushing this out. The artists that are popular now like Adele or whatever. They've got a promo team Pushing out their first albums.

Yeah, for sure. What were they doing wrong? Who knows but the thing is though like they probably weren't promoting his work any differently than they were the others they had under about like Boney M and The Cure etc there is a suggestion that he was Latin, right?

Rodriguez is a Spanish name and Spanish music wasn't doing anything. So it could have been the fact that he was Spanish, Which is a shame, but then, why could they not just create a demand for it like they did with Motown? Because Sussex Records was hugely involved in Motown. So, just create a niche for it.

I don't understand, because it's such a waste. Beautiful album, beautiful voice. Yeah, it doesn't make sense, they should be trying to get that on the radio, but, oh well, it failed. And look at some of the other greats, right? Selena, she was a Spanish singer, and she was bigger than Britney.

Yeah, it's weird that they didn't think to take, well I guess he's singing in English, but it's weird to think that they didn't take it to any other country or anything like that. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know. So, the ironic thing is, is that the last record that they record is called Coz. As in like, because.

And the very first line of that song is Cause I lost my job two weeks before Christmas And I talked to Jesus at the sewer And the Pope said it was none of your goddamn business While the rain drank champagne My Estonian archangel came and got me wasted Cause the sweetest kiss I ever got Was the one that I never tasted

Kyle Risi: This song is such a beautiful and haunting song. And then, just two weeks before Christmas, later that year, Sussex Records drops him off of the label. And so that song was actually a premonition, because the very first line of that song was that I lost my job two weeks before Christmas.

That's so weird. Isn't that strange? But also The last line of the song is, 'Cause the sweetest kiss I ever got is the one I never tasted. It's like foreshadowing in a way. He never got to taste success. You're right. He got given this opportunity to be this huge star.

Something that most people only dream of, but it just didn't work out. And so Rodriguez's legacy in the USA was one that nobody had ever heard of him. And he was a failed artist. Yeah. One of many, I'm sure. Yeah. 

And so after this, Rodrigues pretty much goes back to work as a labourer doing various demolition and renovation work.

on the side He does get involved in a bit of local politics working to kind of be that voice for the working poor But again, he never gets elected, it's so sad that he really puts himself out there.

He tries to kind of Make a better life for himself because he's extremely talented, but he just never lands a shot. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I mean they say to become super successful like that. You need that luck, right? Yeah, and it seems like he never had that stroke of luck that he was aware of.

So in the documentary when they do go visit him in Detroit They ask him like did you know that you were popular in South Africa in the 70s and 80s? And he is like, no, I had no idea. No one ever contacted me. I never received any checks in the mail. I never heard from Clarence Avant again. That was a guy who owned Sussex Records. 

All he knew was that Sussex Records had gone under. And isn't that just some weird paradox of the mind? Your music can inspire, like, millions of people to fight for a better life. You become that beacon of hope and resistance. And that to millions of ordinary people, you are essentially a hero. And yet, You do not know it. 

No, you're just, what, laying bricks and stuff like that? Yeah. It's crazy. Bizarre. Do you know what it reminds me of? I don't know why, and this is gonna sound stupid. It reminds me of you arriving on the shores of Madagascar and all these lemurs are just thinking that you are their god.

Yeah. I don't know, it's just Are you talking about Madagascar? Madagascar, yeah. This is just like that movie. It's just so unfortunate. They also ask him, like, how does it feel knowing that you were unaware of something that would have changed your life? So completely and Rodriguez just pauses for the longest time and he just says I do not know how to respond to that 

yeah, I guess because you have found some other way to have joy and fulfillment in your life that you're probably pleased with right in a way And now you're saying like, oh, would you rather had all this or success?

Yeah, you had it you did get it Yeah, it's just never I don't know. Yeah, it's such a weird paradox It's something that I would hate to be faced with That reality of having to go through that, because then to not have the success means to regret your children. Yeah. And to regret the wife that you found.

And the family that you had. But I guess he's had both lives, really. In some ways, maybe he's fortunate in that. And at least he's now finding out about it. Mm hmm. That he had this impact, this profound impact on so many people. Yeah, possibly. Is it better late than never? I'd say so. So you really get the sense in the documentary that Rodriguez does go on to have a fulfilling life.

But he is really like super humble. And you get this sense that maybe fame would have possibly been a burden for him? I'm not sure. Because he's so reserved and shy on camera that it's just so difficult to tell, but that's the impression that I get. So he does go on to have three kids, and by all accounts, he is a great dad.

When they were growing up, He was really focused on making sure they were exposed to the arts, they spent a load of their time at libraries and museums. Just making sure that they experienced life outside of the city of Detroit because it was just so much full of this decay and lack of opportunities and things like that.

So in March 1998, Rodriguez gets on a flight with his three daughters with all of their luggage, which is really heavy, and they make their way to South Africa. The plan is that Stephen is going to arrange just a few gigs and Rodriguez would be the main act, but they have no expectations.

They just think it's going to be this kind of really intimate affair at a few bars with like 20 people in attendance. so Stephen starts organizing and when word spreads that not only is Rodriguez alive, but that he is coming to South Africa, people are literally like, whaaaaaat?

Nobody believes it. How can someone just come back from the dead? Everyone thinks it's this weird PR stunt, but tickets sell because people are just fascinated. So when Stephen reaches out to various bands to see who was interested in being the opening act for Rodriguez, they are like literally all astonished.

They're like, what the, are you talking about the real Rodriguez? And Stephen is like, yes, he is very much alive. So eventually they pick a really huge band. If there's any South Africans out there, you'll know this band is Big Sky. And they get picked to be both the opening act for Rodriguez. But also his backing band, because remember, Rodriguez has been working on a building site for the last 20 years, so he doesn't actually have a band of his own.

But even though Big Sky agree to perform with him, they're still skeptical. They say like, we will only believe that it's the real Rodriguez when we can see that he can actually sing those songs on stage.

Until then, to us, this is a PR stunt. Yeah, I guess they don't really know what he looks like, do they? No, I mean, all they have to go on is the album cover, right? So when Rodriguez arrives in South Africa with the kids, It is a whole different world to them, people are treating them like royalty.

There's a huge entourage ready to receive them, complete with limousines, fancy hotels, incredible food, and hordes of fans come out to meet them, and his daughters are like looking at their dad going, This is crazy! Our dad is a superstar! And they just cannot believe it!

Can you just imagine finding out your mum Sandra is the fourth member of the Supremes with Diana Ross? Well, she did used to have quite big hair back in the day. I knew it. I mean, to be fair, Your mum could be Diana Ross. I've never seen your mum and Diana Ross in the same room at the same time.

Neither have I. So, I mean, it's plausible. Your mum could be, like, going out at night, And just transforming into Diana Ross. Yeah, she'd need to be able to sing and um, And be a beautiful black lady. Neither of those things. Again, like, this is testament to how sceptical South Africans were that Rodriguez was actually going to be performing.

Because in the days leading up to the gig, his daughter Regan receives a call at the hotel And it's a reporter, she is looking to speak to Rodriguez, but for whatever reason, he's not available. So, Regan asks the reporter to call back. But before she hangs up, the reporter's like, Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Just between, like, me and you, Mm hmm. Is this the real Rodriguez? Like, people can't believe it, man. Like, to them, this is literally Elvis coming back from the dead. Yeah, I guess that's the way of putting it. You wouldn't believe it. If this was on the news right now, we'd Yeah. 

So, on March the 6th, 1998, Rodriguez and the girls show up at Bellevue Velodrome in Cape Town. And it's a huge venue. It seats, like, 5, 000 people. Every seat is filled and for hours before they arrive, the crowd is literally roaring. When you look at the footage of this on YouTube and also in this documentary, it's just incredible.

Everyone is desperate to lay eyes on Rodriguez, and then all of a sudden this voice shouts out, Are you ready? 

Adam Cox: And the entire velodrome just erupts with screaming and cheering. And then the opening chords of I Wonder start strumming on the guitar and Adam, it is this really iconic, iconic song because for many South Africans, this record would have been the first time that anyone had ever heard the word sex on a record.

So it was huge. It was the biggest thing ever. So Rodriguez just walks out on stage and everyone is on their feet for 10 minutes. They are literally just screaming and shouting. And Regan was like, It was almost as if he did not need to play, like, just the sight of him would have been enough. And eventually, Rodriguez just timidly, and this sums him up in every way, in terms of his personality, he just says, thank you for keeping me alive, in the most timid way. And then he just starts playing. I wonder, and if you thought the crowd couldn't scream any louder, then you are a mistaken. 

And so I Wonder is one of his most famous songs. And it's got these really candid lyrics and this incredibly simple melody. And it's just 2 minutes and 41 seconds long. And it 100 percent reflects the style of his songwriting. And what I love about the song is that it's just so easy to sing along with.

You can imagine like, cruising down the road, on the highway, just with this playing and just singing along. It's just so easy. Yeah, yeah. It's a nice song.

And the song just touches upon kind of these themes of curiosity about the world, about love, and about just the simple pleasures of life. And for me, it's like Imagine by John Lennon. It's kind of like on a par with that. It's just such an iconic song and I think this is the same. 

So how did he prepare for something like this? Because he would have been, well, in obscurity really. He wouldn't have been used to playing, maybe he might have done a few gigs, but he wouldn't be playing like these big crowds. No, but the thing is though, he's never played these size crowds before, right?

No one has until you do it, right? That must have been really daunting, just coming over and then going, right, you've got all these fans, go on, go out there. Yeah, it's difficult for us to articulate or kind of compare the feelings that he must be going through because this has never happened before, right?

This is the first time this has ever happened in the universe, essentially. So the rest of the concert goes off without a hitch. People literally wait for hours to get their stuff signed by him. One guy has the Colfax album tattooed on his arm, and it's so old that the blue ink has just bled into his skin.

That's how long these people were fans of his music for, which is crazy. And hats off to Rodriguez because he is just so incredibly humble he just soldiers through and he just signs the autographs until all of them have been signed. And it takes hours and hours.

So in the documentary, they interview this writer at the time and he sums up this moment just so beautifully. He says, Your dreams of yourself, the higher forms of yourself, is that one day you will be recognized and that your talents and everything else will suddenly become visible to the world. But most of us die without that ever happening.

And tonight It happened for Rodriguez. Isn't that beautiful? 

Yeah, I guess it just goes to show like, success like this can just come at any time in your life. Yeah, you're right, it can just happen. You can wake up one morning and then boom, the right person has discovered your music.

They say like, you have to find your audience. Right, don't they? They always say that. Go to where your audience is. But his audience found him. Yeah, which is just isn't that just beautiful? Yeah, 

so he goes off He does 29 more concerts just like this if not bigger and he gets interviewed by radio stations by TV shows Literally everyone wants a piece of him.

Kyle Risi: But then adam it's time to go home and when he gets back It's literally as if nothing happened like people back home They didn't really know what to make of any of this some people Didn't even believe it and others were just confused.

They were like Don't understand. He tells one of his friends, right, about this, and his friend's like, Well, can you get me a copy of this album? And he says no. Because, like, in America, he's completely unknown. That he can't possibly get hold of that album. It's almost like some sort of wild trip he's just been on.

And like, he's woke up and gone, Is this real? Have you taken too much LSD? Yeah. But the thing is though, he's got all these photos of him on stage. With these crowds of thousands of adoring fans. So. People couldn't not believe it. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? to his day job as a labourer, just humble as ever.

And the experience does not change him at all. And he doesn't make really any money. After all that? Yeah, he doesn't. Like, remember, royalties are being paid, probably to Clarence Avant. In fact, in the documentary, they do find. Clarence and this bit just made me so mad.

So Sussex records at the time They had some huge stars on their books bill withers. For example, he sang ain't no sunshine? And clarence says that if he had to pick his top five artists that he's ever worked with, Rodriguez would be on that list. Really? Yeah. And he says that even though he was amazing, he was basically a nobody in America.

He sold a total of six copies of his album. when they asked Clarence if he knew that Rodriguez was selling millions of records in another country, he just says, do you think that I'm going to go chasing royalties? In another country, but the thing is royalties were being paid So somebody must have chased up because someone was receiving that money.

Of course, you'd be going chasing that, because the companies in South Africa referenced his company. And he just sat on it, didn't he? He did. And this guy, to me, is just a lying piece of shit that got away with robbing Rodriguez of a life that would have benefited him and his kids.

Yeah, like, he would have known. It's sickening. He could have just called him up and gone, hey, do you know what, you're a big deal. Yeah, here's some money. Do you know what I mean? But also after finding this out, Rodriguez, he never pursues the money. It just wasn't important to him. Which I just think is just testament to the type of person that he was as well.

But it feels like he could strike up a deal now, like going like, Hey, actually, this music might be quite, I guess it's 20, 30 years old. Yeah. So in the years that followed, though, his music does gain more attention globally and his albums are reissued for release around the world.

And he does get a new generation of fans, but the pinnacle of his resurgence comes with the release of the documentary Searching for Sugarman, which is what, obviously, today's episode is based on. And thanks to this, he's even more famous than he ever was. So, fun fact about the documentary is that part way through they run out of money and the rest of it just has to be filmed on their mobile phone.

But in August 2022, Rodriguez, goes completely blind due to glaucoma. And then in 2023, just like five months ago, he suffers a stroke and he, he dies.

So as for Eva, when she visited South Africa with her dad, she fell in love with the bodyguard who was chaperoning them. And they are now married and they have a child together. So Rodriguez has a South African grandson. And I just think that's so poetic because this elusive figure who had meant so much to a generation is literally now melded with his people through his DNA.

And I just think that as a concept is just so beautiful. Yeah. And that is the story of. 6 2 Rodriguez, the sugar man who inspired a generation and ignited a revolution. 

Wow, that, you just could have made that up, I don't feel, like, for something like that to happen in real life.

That is just one of the craziest stories, and I'm just really glad that he managed to at least know that he impacted so many people's lives, he had that success, he went on tour at least once, he had a flavour of that. That's, that's nice. And his kids got to see it, which actually, How proud. Yeah, they wouldn't have got to do that if he was, if they were babies at the time or anything.

So they got to experience that with him. I mean, this wasn't the only tour that he did do. He did do a little bit of a mini tour around Australia I think he went to Sweden as well. He did a few festival tours around the United States. So his fame did last a little bit, but.

ultimately, once that was done, like, I mean, he's, his health kind of deteriorated and then he ultimately died.

So I just want to end on the song that started it all. The song that kickstarted that rumor that he'd killed himself on stage all those years ago. And it's called Forget It. and I love the song even more now because it's so fitting to this story because it reflects on the themes of resignation and acceptance with that kind of like hint of bitterness, right?

And the key lyrics in the song are, but thanks for your time, then you can thank me for mine. And with that said, I'd like to thank Candice for her time. And I'd like to end with this song.

Adam Cox: And so we come to the end of another episode of The Compendium, an assembly of fascinating and intriguing things. If you found today's episode both fascinating and intriguing, then subscribe and leave us a review. But don't just stop there schedule your episodes to download automatically As soon as they become available, we're on instagram at the compendium podcast So stop by and say hi or visit us at our home on the web at the compendium podcast.

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We release new episodes every tuesday and until then remember Just like Candice's journey with the rhythms of Rodriguez our stories echo in the songs that we leave behind. 

See you next time.