Rodriguez was born Sixto Diaz Rodriguez, Sixto (pronounced “Seez-toe”) means sixth in Spanish as he is the sixth child in his family, was born and bred and still lives in Detroit.

Rodriguez was a little known compared to other 60s folk Tim Buckley, John Martyn, Donovan et al, that is until 2002 when ‘Sugar Man’ was picked up by David Holmes and included it on his Come Get It, I Got It compilation that later, Rodriguez re-recording the song for Holmes’ The Free Association the following year.

And not that Rodriguez knew it, Cold Feet from 1970 found a ‘home’ in South Africa as a beacon of revolution. Originally released in 1972 as the follow-up, Coming From Reality continues the inner-city politics, psychedelic drug culture, free-sex and general wierdness in his song/stories/arrangements that sound part Dylan, part Harry Chapin, part Jose Feliciano.

It’s odd to think that this album had the same commercial sucess as Cold Feet, both bombed, when there’s tracks like gentle love songs like ‘Silver Words?’ and the Big Chill strings ‘Sandrevan Lullaby-Lifestyles’, the clever relationship examination ‘Halfway Up the Stairs’ and the introspective ‘Cause’.

With Coming From Reality Rodriguez ended his recording career never even played a proper gig; somewhat at odds with the lyrics of ‘A Most Disgusting Song’ which opens with the line “I’ve played ever type of gig there is to play now”. It continues to the bar room blues, with lines like, “Everyone’s drinking the detergents that won’t remove the hurt, while the Mafia provides your drugs, your government will provide your shrugs, and your National Guard will provide the slugs, so they sit all satisfied”. So leaving a life of music behind him, first stop was getting into local politics, philosophy before moving onto pumping gas and, eventually, hard labour. So barring a couple of small-scale Australian tours in 1979 and 1981, nothing had been heard of him for almost 30 years and rumours were rife that he was dead.

Contrary to his urban myth, fan and journalist Craig Bartholemew tracked him down to Detroit where he was living with no idea about his fame in South Africa. Even thought the album had gone multi-platinum, Rodriguez had not received any royalties but this lead to a triumphant South African tour and documentry in 1998.

Coming From Reality is a a Joyce, Nana Vasconcelos, Mauricio Mastro - Visions Of Dawn crossed with the best lyrical blues elements of Gomez’ A New Tide and the sense of The Monks black moments from Black Monk Time

Both Carlos Niño on his Spaceways Radio Show (Spaceways KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles) and and Gilles Peterson have been playing tracks from this album already and with Big Chill warm-up lined up at the Barbican, Rodriguez is going to be as big here as he is in South Africa.

Reviewed: Rodriguez - Coming From Reality (Light In The Attic) Cat. No: LITA038
Release date: May 2009
Tracklisting:
1 Climb Up On My Music (4:54)
2 A Most Disgusting Song (4:49)
3 I Think Of You (3:26)
4 Heikki’s Suburbia Bus Tour (3:23)
5 Silver Words? (2:05)
6 Sandrevan Lullaby-Lifestyles (6:37)
7 To Whom It May Concern (3:22)
8 It Started Out So Nice (4:01)
9 Halfway Up The Stairs (2:28)
10 Cause (5:30)
Bonus Tracks
11 Can’t Get Away (3:57)
12 Street Boy (3:48)
13 I’ll Slip Away (2:53)

Links:
6th June 2009: Barbican on Saturday. Rodriguez, the Legendary Detroit singer and songwriter, has had one of the most unusual career trajectories in popular music. Rediscovered a decade ago working on a Detroit building site, he was apparently unaware that one of his own albums had become not only a cult classic, but for people on the other side of the world, in South Africa, a beacon of hope and revolution. This is only his second UK visit since his re-emergence
Rodriquez + Fujiya & Miyagi, post show DJ Matthew Herbert @ The Barbican in association with The Big Chill.
www.myspace.com/rodriguezsugarman
www.sugarman.org
www.myspace.com/lightintheattic
www.lightintheattic.net