Sugar Man, Rodriguez   http://www.rodriguez-music.com/

Been listening to the cd, after watching the film on widescreen last night. Spectacular shots of sunsets and birds flying. Symbolic of a man who u least thought would have wings if u met him in the USA, a very different perspective here, in Zimbabwe and South Africa where the guy is more famous than God. I know some of the songs, even some of the words, but I never owned a Rodriguez record till now. And listening to the first album is memorable, tho where I heard it I’m not sure, my brother didn’t listen to it that I’m certain. He was listening to ACDC, heavy metal. The music must’ve been played somewhere, as a child I heard it.

The story of this guy is incredible. In the States where he lived, he gigged in every possible venue, but couldn’t sell a record. People just didn’t get it. Wrong place, wrong time. Yet by some miraculous wave of fate, someone arrived in SA with a copy of the first album and it spread from there. He should be the equivalent of Bob Dylan or Cat Stevens in USA or Elvis in SA. Yet he still shovels people’s shit for a living, his body shakes like Ozzy Osbourne, probably with slightly less drugs thanx to such an un-rock and roll lifestyle.

The success of Rodriguez is a sad reminder of how human networking created change and movement, before the age we live in, where now everything is spread globally overnight. People who grew up with the music as a soundtrack to their lives, are living in an isolated part of the world, where a mass revolution of music was taking place with festivals like Woodstock, Beatles playing on rooftops and not one person on the streets of New York/ LA with any knowledge of a guy from Detroit whose name was the equivalent in apartheid South Africa.

And I wonder if he were that successful then, if he’d burn himself out with too many drugs and the excess of sex finally anaesthetise his sadness. To be living in Detroit, raising children, working manual labour, his neighbours not lifting anything other than their syringes. Shooting sugar to erase the grey edges.

Really the guy is a modern living prophet, ‘ And I talk to Jesus at the sewer and the Pope said it was none of his God-damn business. While the rain drank champagne, My Estonian Archangel came and got me wasted. Cos the sweetest kiss i ever got is the one i”ve never  tasted.’

No video conferencing, his face spread over every billboard covering Mail on Sunday issues. This is one guy who outlived his  album, whose spirit  knew no borders, his essence on the tip of every wing in each continent.

If there were one question I’d ask Rodriguez, it would be ‘were u the only one not listening to your music?’

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixto_Rodriguez