RAVE: Hail, Rodriguez the Poet!

This week I was so fortunate to see an excellent documentary called “Searching for Sugarman.” It was made riveting by the fact that the documentary unravelled like a detective story.

But this was no ordinary gumshoe detective story. The detectives in this enthralling ‘caper’ were two South Africans, one a music producer, the other a self-styled ‘musical detective,’ who embarked on a tenacious, topsy-turvy and quite brilliant quest to discover what had happened to one of the most enigmatic music geniuses of the 1970s. This was a musical genius who had galvanized the South African anti-apartheid movement and the conscience of countless white South African youth at that time, the time of apartheid’s ugliest nadir.

To South Africans in the early- to mid-1970s (and beyond), and especially white South Africans, this folk hero was bigger than Bob Dylan. Yes, Bob Dylan.

His name was Rodriguez.

And, suddenly, after two studio albums of his were released in the early 1970s he just disappeared. An absolute nobody in his native United States, it was here in South Africa that people started to seriously ask: ‘Who was Rodriguez?’ and, more so, ‘What happened to Rodriguez?’

Urban myths abounded including that he had shot himself in the head on stage or even set himself alight on stage. The documentary reveals in fascinating detail how it turned out that Sixto Rodriguez was not dead but alive and well and living in his hometown of Detroit. Rather, he was alive but not necessarily that well, at least materially speaking. Having spent most of his years doing hard labour in odd jobs like carpentry and carpentry, Rodriguez was living a very frugal life in a quite delapidated house in a decidedly rundown part of inner city Detroit.

Our intrepid detectives finally got hold of him and brought the soft-spoken, painfully shy and incredibly modest Rodriguez to do some concerts in Cape Town in 1998, back to the country which had loved him and his music like no other. His concerts were sell-out pop culture events in Cape Town, and the footage of the adoring South African crowds, almost all white, many in tears and screaming as Rodriguez strutted his inimitable stuff on stage, moved me to tears.

Watching how much effort the intrepid musical detectives made to track him down and how much love was poured at him in these shows made me proud to be a white South African. Proud that it was it was (mostly) due to white South Africa that this brilliant but obscure folk singer of Mexican heritage was at least loved and respected somewhere in the world. Make that adored – after all, it’s estimated that he probably sold half a million records in South Africa, the ‘money trail’ of which formed a central vein in this delicious musico detective story.

This profound poet, American though he may be, is ours.

What astounded me even more is how familiar I was with his music without even having realized or known that they were the songs of Rodriguez. I was quite embarrassed by that, let me tell you! The song “I Wonder” is foremost in my memory of a 1970s childhood in apartheid Johannesburg, and hearing it again has had me constantly humming it this entire week, so familiar it was to me. I know I heard and liked that and other of his songs as a young boy, yet I don’t think either of my brothers ever had his records, nor could I have heard it on the radio as it was mostly banned at the time. But I knew his music well.

When raving about the documentary to a good friend and colleague of mine the next day, she nodded her head vigorously and told me he was indeed “much bigger than Bob Dylan” in this country, and that listening to Rodriguez was what “all the cool high school kids did” back in those days. Such was his hold on South Africans yearning to be anti-establishment in whatever way possible.

He continues to live his frugal, very modest life in Detroit. Many trips and concerts back here in South Africa have no doubt made him some money, but at the end of the documentary it was stated that he gave most of his money away to family and friends. Because this is what Rodriguez the poet and the musician is all about – the music, the poetry, and the pure love of it all. He is not about the money nor the fame nor the trappings of wealth and celebrity to which so many ‘musicians’ today so readily aspire. He is true to himself and he has chartered his own, very hard but very honest path. And he looks to me one of the most content men I have ever seen.

This man with a voice richer and far better than that of Bob Dylan, this lyricist easily on par in depth and poetry as Dylan – this man is nothing short of genius.


Photo courtesy of filmgordon.wordpress.com

Rodriguez is an unsung music hero and remains an underappreciated poet of undeniable talent. There is a certain sadness for me in the fact that he is still not as famous and revered around the world as he should be. However, it is in his unique contentment that I find much so much solace for his sake.

Rodriguez may not be as wealthy or well-known as he deserves, but he may very well be the richest man I have ever seen.   

Rodriguez, your contentment and truth to self is inspiration to me, as it no doubt is to so many others.