Sixto Sugar Man Rodriguez Caricature

Sixto “Sugar Man” Rodriguez Caricature, shown here on February 2, 2013 in Paris, France age 71.

Sixto Diaz Rodriguez, (born July 10, 1942), is an American singer-songwriter from Detroit, Michigan. His career initially proved short lived in the United States, but unknown to Rodriguez his albums became extremely successful and influential in South Africa, where he is believed to have sold more records than Elvis Presley. Because of scarce information about Rodriguez, it was incorrectly rumored there that he had committed suicide shortly after releasing his first album in 1970.
So globally, it was believed that the “Sugar Man” was dead.

In the 1990s, determined South African fans managed to find and contact Rodriguez, which led to an unexpected revival of his musical career. This was told in the 2012 Academy Award–winning documentary film Searching for Sugar Man and helped give Rodriguez a measure of fame in his home country.

In 1967, using the name “Rod Riguez” (given by his record label), he released a single, “I’ll Slip Away”, on the small Impact label. He did not record again for three years, until he signed with Sussex Records, an offshoot of Buddah Records. He used his preferred professional name, “Rodriguez”, after that. He recorded two albums with Sussex, Cold Fact in 1970 and Coming from Reality in 1971. However, both sold few copies in the US and he was quickly dropped by Sussex, which itself closed in 1975.
Rodriguez quit his music career and in 1976 he purchased a derelict Detroit house in a government auction for $50 in which he still lives as of 2013.

Although Rodriguez remained relatively unknown in his home country, by the mid-1970s his albums were starting to gain significant airplay in Australia, Botswana, New Zealand, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
In 1972, an Australian record label, Blue Goose Music, bought the Australian rights to his recordings. Blue Goose released his two studio albums as well as a compilation album, At His Best, that featured unreleased recordings from 1973 – “Can’t Get Away”, “I’ll Slip Away” (a re-recording of his first single), and “Street Boy”.

“At His Best” went platinum in South Africa, which at one stage was the major disc-press source of his music to the rest of the world. He was compared to contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Cat Stevens. Some of his songs served as anti-Apartheid anthems in South Africa.

In 1991, both of his albums were released on CD in South Africa for the first time, which helped preserve his fame. However, few details of his life were known to his fans and it was rumored that he had killed himself during a concert in the 1970s.

In the late 1990s, two Cape Town fans, Stephen “Sugar” Segerman and Craig Bartholomew Strydom, began an investigation to find out whether the rumored death of American musician Rodriguez was true, and if not, to discover what had become of him. Rodriguez’s music, which had never achieved success in the United States, had become very popular in South Africa although little was known about him in that country.
Eventually they managed to contact Rodriguez’s daughter who told them that her father was still alive and living in Detroit. The two men then flew to Michigan and met Rodriguez for the first time and explained to him that he was a huge rock star in Australia, Europe and Africa.
Segerman and Strydom compiled their efforts in a film documentary called “Searching For Sugar Man”. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 85th Academy Awards in Hollywood in 2013.

Learning of his fame abroad, Rodriguez went on his first South African tour, playing six sold-out concerts before thousands of fans in 1997.
With his new-found fame, he also performed in Sweden before returning to South Africa in 2001 and 2005.

Rodriguez continues to tour throughout the United States, most recently headlining a run in grand theaters across the continent in August 2018, culminating with a hometown show at Detroit’s Garden Theater.

Rodriguez’s hit songs: “Sugar Man”, “I Wonder”, “Crucify Your Mind”, “Inner City Blues”, “Cause”, “I Think Of You” and “I’ll Slip Away”.