Rodriguez

He is a sort of best kept secret. A guy from Detroit, recorded two great albums in seventies and was forgotten in the West. However became very popular in South Africa. Mr H, being a big fan, nearly passed out when he found out Rodriguez was coming to Adelaide and immediately bought tickets. So this is an after midnight/very early morning/not really morning just middle of the night blip with today's date. The concert was great, super venue, all standing places, a few bars, audience singing along throughout. No idea what the average age would be, it ranged from retirees to teenagers (accompanied by parents) and all in between.

Rodriguez himself was wonderful, the voice, the guitar, talking between the songs, sense of humour. He was the most humble performer I've ever seen, very genuine and simply lovable. Definitely not looking or acting his 68 years of age. And like he said last night: There is only one age, you're either dead or alive. I'm not getting older, I'm getting deader. I hope he'll come back next year. We'll be there.

His album Cold Fact is once again available to buy. It is worth every penny/cent or any other grosz, and I hope this time Rodriguez will be getting royalties from the sales (see a bit of a background copied from Amazon, they shouldn't mind if I'm increasing their sales).

It s one of the lost classics of the 60s, a psychedelic masterpiece drenched in colour and inspired by life, love, poverty, rebellion, and, of course, jumpers, coke, sweet mary jane . The album is Cold Fact, and what s more intriguing is that its maker a shadowy figure known as Rodriguez was, for many years, lost too. A decade ago, he was rediscovered working on a Detroit building site, unaware that his defining album had become not only a cult classic, but for the people of South Africa, a beacon of revolution. Sixto Diaz Rodriguez was born in 1942 to Mexican immigrant parents in Detroit, Michigan. He recorded Cold Fact his debut album in 1969, and released it in March 1970. It s crushingly good stuff, filled with tales of bad drugs, lost love, and itchy-footed songs about life in late 60s inner-city America. Gun sales are soaring/Housewives find life boring/Divorce the only answer/Smoking causes cancer, says the Dylan-esque Establishment Blues. But the album sank without trace, thanks, in part, to some of Rodriguez s more idiosyncratic behavior, like performing at an industry showcase with his back to the audience throughout. As his music career became a memory, Rodriguez s legend was growing on the other side of the world. In South Africa and, to a lesser extent, Rhodesia, Australia and New Zealand, Cold Fact had become a major word of mouth success, particularly among young people in the South African armed forces, who identified with its counter-cultural bent. But Rodriguez was an enigma not even the label knew where to find him and his demise became the subject of debate and conjecture. Some rumors said he d died of a heroin overdose or burned to death on stage. But the tide began to turn in 1996, when journalist Craig Bartholemew set out to get to the bottom of the mystery. After many dead ends, he found Rodriguez alive, well, free and perfectly sane in Detroit, ending years of speculation. Rodriguez himself had no idea about his fame in South Africa (the album had gone multi-platinum, Rodriguez has received not so much as a Rand in royalties), and embarked on a triumphant South African tour followed, filling 5,000 capacity venues across the country. Rodriguez was still largely unknown in the northern hemisphere until 2002, when Sugar Man, the album s extra-terrestrially wonderful lead track, was picked up by David Holmes. The DJ discovered the album in a New York record store, and included it on his Come Get It, I Got It compilation, re-recording the song with Rodriguez for his Free Association project a year later. Now, Light In The Attic is set to commit Cold Fact to CD for audiences in the UK and America, who can finally find out why halfway across the world Rodriguez is spoken of in the same reverent tones as The Doors, Love and Jimi Hendrix.