Rodriguez

The mysterious Rodriguez is a living, breathing rock ’n’ roll fairy tale. Born in 1942 in Detroit, Mich., Sixto Diaz Rodriguez released his debut album, Cold Fact, in 1970, followed by Coming From Reality in 1972. Both albums showcased a psychedelic folk-rocker (not unlike Arthur Lee of Love) taking a cold, hard look at the realities of American life in the aftermath of the Summer of Love — particularly the plight of the inner-city poor. Both albums stiffed, though, and Rodriguez moved on, giving up music seemingly for good — completely unaware that on the opposite side of the world, in places like South Africa and Australia, Cold Fact became a multi-platinum success. He did emerge from retirement briefly in 1979 and 1981 for a pair of short tours of Australia, then disappeared again until a South African journalist found him working construction in Detroit in 1996. Shortly thereafter, Rodriguez was playing for the biggest crowds of his life on an incredibly successful comeback tour of Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban and Pretoria, documented in the documentary Dead Men Don’t Tour: Rodriguez in South Africa 1998. A few years later, the world-famous DJ David Holmes included the Cold Fact track “Sugar Man” on his 2002 compilation album Come Get It, I Got It. Both of Rodriguez’s long lost (domestically, at least) albums were reissued by Light in the Attic Records in the last year, sparking his first ever tour in his native America.