Sixto Rodriguez, ‘Sugar Man’ singer, dies at 81

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Composer was the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary ‘Looking for Sugar Man’ in 2013. Sixto Rodríguez during a performance at the Beacon Theater in April 2013 Evan Agostini/Invision/AP/Archive Sixto Rodríguez, the American singer who found a professional rebirth after his music became an object of worship abroad, he died on Tuesday (8), aged 81, announced his website. He was the subject of the film “Looking for Sugar Man”, which won an Oscar for best documentary in 2013. “It is with great sadness that we at Sugarman.org announce that Sixto Díaz Rodríguez passed away this Tuesday,” said the statement, without giving details of the cause of death of the singer known for hits like “Sugar Man” and “I Wonder”. “We send our deepest condolences to their daughters – Sandra, Eva and Regan – and to their entire family,” the statement added. The musician was born on July 10, 1942, in the city of Detroit, in the state of Michigan. The son of Mexican parents, Rodríguez worked on vehicle assembly lines, while earning a living as a musician in his spare time. He released two albums in the 1970s, “Cold Fact” and “Coming From Reality”, which made him a cult musician, although he didn’t know it himself. Afterwards, Rodríguez gave up music to live a quiet life in Detroit. He majored in philosophy at Wayne University and participated in politics. He ran unsuccessfully for mayoralty, city council, and even the state senate. The man had no idea, however, that his music, especially “Sugar Man”, had a loyal following in apartheid South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. In 1979, he was surprised to be invited to sing in Australia, a country to which he returned two years later. His public absence fueled the belief, among fans, that Rodríguez was dead. But the Internet has changed that. His daughter Eva found pages dedicated to her father, and he was found by fans. In 1998, he made a successful tour of South Africa. “I told him: in South Africa you are bigger than Elvis”, recalled one of his fans, Stephen Segerman, in an interview with the Detroit News in 2008. with Segerman, the rawness and themes devoted to escaping harsh reality – “Sugar Man” is a surrealist ode to a drug dealer – resonated deeply in apartheid South Africa. Johannesburg-born musician Dave Matthews covered Rodríguez. He was “one of my childhood heroes”, he stated. ‘Very crazy’ Rodríguez’s records were re-released on CDs, and his extraordinary story was immortalized in the film “Looking for Sugar Man” (2012), which won several awards, including an Oscar and a BAFTA. It also contributed to Rodríguez’s belated success in his own country, the United States, fueling the revival of his music career. Four decades after releasing his records, he was invited to perform at Coachella and Glastonbury festivals, and embarked on several world tours. “I just want to be treated like any other legend,” Rodríguez told the audience at a successful screening in Detroit following the film’s premiere. In a 2013 interview with the Detroit Free Press, he expressed his own amazement at his story, a newsboy turned rock star. “I’ve been chasing music since I was 16. Now I’m 70, so it’s really crazy that this happened”, said Rodríguez, for whom all this was like “an irony of fate, a stroke of luck”.

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