In the late 1960s, a Mexican-American singer-songwriter is signed to a record label after two Motown producers see him performing in a seedy Detroit dive called The Sewer. He delivers two albums, which receive rave reviews (he is compared to Bob Dylan; some say he is better than Bob Dylan), but nobody buys them, so he drops from sight, and would have stayed dropped from sight, but for one remarkable twist: unbeknownst to him, particularly as he never saw any royalties, he had become a massive hit in apartheid-era South Africa, outselling both Elvis and the Rolling Stones. The artist is Sixto Rodriguez and this film, his story, is the best, most touching, most humbling documentary I’ve ever seen about a musician I’ve never heard of. Further, I would also venture it may well be the best, most touching, most humbling documentary about a musician you’ve never heard of, too. I don’t know what makes me think this, I just do.
Made by the Swedish documentary maker Malik Bendjelloul, whose grip on storytelling is sure, this works equally well as detective story, personal portrait and study of a particular time in history. Rodriguez did not sing about the pretty things of life, nor did he have a pretty life. People who knew him in Detroit, back in the day, assumed he was ‘a homeless person.’ The first track on his first album, Cold Facts, is ‘Sugar Man’, a bleak portrait of a drug dealer and his clients. Other songs, like ‘I Wonder’ and ‘Inner City Blues’ addressed social, political and racial inequities.
Somehow (long story), Cold Facts made it to South Africa, where Rodriguez became a ready-made anti-establishment figure for those white Afrikaners who wished to overturn apartheid.
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