The history of recorded music is peopled with more losers than winners—ambitious artists who cut a record or two, sold little, and faded back into obscurity. But for Sixto Rodriguez, a Detroit-based singer/songwriter who released two albums in the 1970s, the story didn’t end there. Somehow his music found its way to the Southern Hemisphere, where it circulated in bootleg form for decades.
Unbeknownst to Rodriguez, who returned to manual labour after his music career tanked, he was garnering a cult following in Australia, New Zealand and especially South Africa, where he was said to be more famous than The Rolling Stones. His popularity in the latter country, where he was assumed dead before two superfans tracked him down in Michigan, was the subject of the 2012 documentary, Searching for Sugar Man.
The film did surprisingly big business at the box office and even won an Oscar. The wide appeal of the documentary’s life-affirming story, and the strength of its soundtrack, catapulted Rodriguez to septuagenarian stardom. He spent the final decade of his life touring the world, playing songs that were older than most members of the audience everywhere from Glastonbury to Coachella.
Rodriguez, who passed away on Tuesday, August 8, at the age of 81, had hinted at returning to the recording studio in this second phase of his career, but no releases ever materialized. Thus, he leaves behind a modest catalogue of 26 songs across his debut album Cold Fact, its follow-up Coming From Reality, and a handful of non-album tracks.
It’s a small body of work, but it nonetheless contains greater substance than most artists who have recorded 10 times as much. And here it is ranked from worst to best.
26. “Gommorah (A Nursery Rhyme)”When Rodriguez came into the studio to cut his first album, 1970’s Cold Fact, he brought 10 original songs. Feeling this was a little short, producers Mike Theodore and Dennis Coffey co-wrote two more, alongside lyricist Gary Harvey. But in attempting to emulate Rodriguez’s street-poet vibe, the trio fell a little short—particularly on this number, which employed a children’s choir to ill effect. The effort reportedly caused some friction, and Rodriguez’s lack of enthusiasm seems evident in his lethargic vocals.
25. “Only Good for Conversation”Sandwiched between the magisterial “Sugar Man” and “Crucify Your Mind”, this overdriven fuzz guitar rocker feels like a jarring anomaly. But no matter where it were sequenced on Rodriguez’s folk-rock debut album this proto-metal number would have seemed out of place.
24. “It Started Out So Nice”Rodriguez’s lyrics don’t always yield their meaning readily. This soft acoustic number from his second album, 1971’s Coming From Reality, is a particularly impenetrable fog of poetic imagery. However, its principal shortcoming is Rodriguez’s vocal, which seems to falter as he reaches for some of the higher notes.
23. “Climb Up On My Music”Rodriguez’s first album had a leanness to it—covering 12 tracks in a little over 30 minutes. His second album opens with a five-minute cut—hardly gargantuan, but the song nonetheless overstays its welcome with extended guitar jamming between verses that feels redundant. Compared to his debut’s opener, “Sugar Man”, this was a definite step down.
22. “Silver Words?”Rodriguez tried his hand at a few conventional love songs for his second album. This one closes out side one of the record and is perfectly charming, even if some of the lyrics are a little slight: “Baby I ain’t joking / And it’s not what I’m smoking / I really think you’re nice.”
21. “This Is Not a Song, It’s an Outburst: Or, the Establishment Blues”After his music career tanked, Rodriguez unsuccessfully ran for public office several times in his native Detroit. But his political interests had been evident long before in his music. This track is perhaps the least subtle example of his political songwriting, but it comes with a sinister twist as its catalogue of society’s ills is capped off with the admission that “frankly I couldn’t care less.”
20. “I Think of You”While Searching for Sugar Man focused on Rodriguez as a cultural phenomenon in South Africa, he also found limited success in several other countries before the film catapulted him to global stardom. One of those countries was Brazil, where this track was released as a B-side and received some airplay in 1972. Its Spanish guitar and string section imply romance, but at its heart it is really a song of loss and loneliness.
19. “Halfway Up the Stairs”The penultimate track from Rodriguez’s second album is probably the smoothest production in his back catalogue. While some of that record, produced by Steve Rowland, was oversaturated with orchestrations, the right balance is struck here, finding a comfortable laid-back groove that layers on keys, bass, hand drums, and finally strings—in adequate measure. It’s a simple soft rock number, but it’s pure enjoyment.
18. “Hate Street Dialogue”The more successful of the two songs penned by Rodriguez’s production team for his debut album emulates his style quite convincingly. The Hate Street of the title references San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, the cradle of ’60s counterculture, and is complemented with a fair smattering of hippie lingo among the lyrics—the “pusher” and the “pig”. Perhaps Rodriguez was more onboard with this number, as he pushes the tempo in a way that suggests enthusiasm. This loose timekeeping was a product of Mike Theodore and Dennis Coffey’s production technique. Finding Rodriguez too eccentric to perform as part of a group, they recorded his vocals and acoustic guitar first, before bringing the session musicians in separately to dub themselves over his haphazard meter.
17. “You’d Like to Admit It”The rarest song in Rodriguez’s back catalogue was originally issued as a B-side to his 1967 debut single ‘I’ll Slip Away’. While the A-side was rerecorded in the early ’70s and then reissued in the aftermath of Searching for Sugar Man, this song was left on the shelf and only eventually made available as a bonus track on a digital download bundle. Despite being the least heard of Rodriguez’s songs, it probably best exemplifies the Bob Dylan comparisons espoused in Searching for Sugar Man. In particular, Rodriguez channels the same venom Dylan exuded on “Positively 4th Street” to chastise an unidentified victim: “When I see you again I’ll just grin / ’Cause I’m happy I’m here and that you’re way the heck over there.”
16. “Can’t Get Away”After the commercial failure of his second album, Rodriguez reunited with Mike Theodore and Dennis Coffey, who produced his debut. They recorded three songs for a possible third album which never materialized. This track was a sonic departure from their previous collaborations, liberally deploying woodwind and strings for a sound more consistent with Coming From Reality. The fact that this song is the weakest of the trio offers a tantalizing suggestion that a third album reuniting Rodriguez with his old producers could have rivaled his debut masterpiece.
15. “Heikki’s Suburbia Bus Tour”According to Rodriguez’s daughter, Eva, the song is based on a true story. In the ’60s, suburbanites would travel into inner city Detroit to observe hippies in their natural habitat as a kind of tourist attraction. In retaliation, Rodriguez arranged a chartered bus for a group of hippies to pay a return visit on the rick folk’s turf in Grosse Point, Michigan. With this back story in mind, the lyrics make a lot more sense. And the stunt allegedly garnered enough press attention to warrant Rodriguez’s opening lines: “Did you read the Sunday paper / About the strong-stomached 25 / Who from an expedition / All came back alive.”
14. “To Whom It May Concern”When Rodriguez’s second album secured a one-paragraph review in trade magazine Billboard, this was the track they singled out: “Best cut here is “To Whom It May Concern,” which definitely deserves airplay.” The record label obviously agreed, issuing it as a single prior to the album’s release. But it failed to get the anticipated radio attention, despite being one of Rodriguez’s most appealing songs – both musically and in terms of the lyrics, which extol wounded singletons to take an active role in searching for love rather than pining away in solitude.
13. “Forget It” Rodriguez closes side one of his debut album with this tightly-composed break-up song, which clocks in at just under two minutes. The final lines appealed to Rodriguez enough for him to reprise them in spoken word form at the end of the album: “Thanks for your time / And you can thank me for mine / And after that’s said / Forget it.”
12. “Sandrevan Lullaby – Lifestyles”The weaknesses of Rodriguez’s sophomore album, as compared to his debut, are largely down to its excesses. The songs are longer and they are recorded with more pomp and flourish. But on “Sandrevan Lullaby – Lifestyles”, the longest studio cut Rodriguez ever recorded, it somehow works. The “Sandrevan Lullaby” is a guitar, harp and violin instrumental which bookends the track. Meanwhile, the central song, “Lifestyles”, evokes a musical feeling of dread paired with one the best examples of Rodriguez’s urban poetry.
11. “Like Janis”This track begins right in the middle of a catalogue of complaints against an unidentified object of ire: “And you measure for wealth by the things you can hold / And you measure for love by the sweet things you’re told / And you live in the past or a dream that you’re in / And your selfishness is your cardinal sin.” This repetitive listing continues in the subsequent verses, anchored by Rodriguez’s equally repetitive rhythm guitar. But the effect is hypnotic rather than boring. And as the second chorus ends on a question—“Why should you act so put out / And sit there in wonder and doubt, for me?”—we return to that repetitive guitar motif again, with seemingly nothing resolved between the narrator and his subject.
10. “Rich Folks Hoax”In isolation, the songs Rodriguez brought to the sessions for his debut album followed a relatively simple compositional structure, based around three or four guitar chords and his distinctive voice. Co-producers Mike Theodore and Dennis Coffey deserve considerable credit for elevating each of these songs with a distinct sound. In “Rich Folks Hoax” a simple bass and percussion backing on the verse leaves space for a jangly echoed guitar to enter on the chorus, matching the despair of the disenfranchised who are told by the obliviously fortunate that there exist simple “recipes for my happiness.”
9. “Jane S. Piddy”Despite the influence and importance of producers Mike Theodore and Dennis Coffey in bringing fresh arrangements to Cold Fact, the album closes out with just Rodriguez and his guitar. It’s a perfect ending to the record, with Rodriguez’s Dylanesque lyrics eventually giving way to the simple repeated refrain “I know you’re lonely” before slowly fading out.
8. “I’ll Slip Away”Rodriguez originally recorded this as his first single in 1967. This early version, produced and arranged by Harry Balk, has more of a psychedelic feeling. But the ’70s rerecording with returning producers Mike Theodore and Dennis Coffey is the definitive version. Rodriguez’s vocal performance is as understated as ever, mirroring the song’s accepted feeling of resignation: “Maybe today, yeah / I’ll slip away.” It’s a line with added poignancy in the aftermath of the singer’s death, making this the song of choice for the mourning Rodriguez fan.
7. “Inner City Blues”In Searching for Sugar Man this is the song that helps a pair of intrepid South African fans to track the singer down. In particular, the line “Met a girl from Dearborn” leads them to Michigan. But Rodriguez’s unsettling imagery speaks to a more universal urban American dystopia than that. The song’s final verse places the subject on “a dusty Georgian side road”, presumably on an attempted escape from the inner city to find the ‘real’ America. But the verse is cut short halfway through with an ominous “trace of thunder” in the distance. It’s a theme repeated across Rodriguez’s corpus, most notably in “Can’t Get Away”–the idea that in modern America there really is no escape.
6. “A Most Disgusting Song”It’s difficult to make a five-minute spoken word song compelling. But Rodriguez succeeds emphatically, finding the rhythm in the words that constitute his lyrical tour de force. The song is structured around a listing of all the colorful characters he has met in the dive bars he’s played over the years, providing a showcase for some of his finest wordplay, such as the “girl who has never been chased/chaste.” It also contains one of his greatest lines, digging at those drunkards “who mislay their dreams and later claim that they were robbed.” All of this is backed by a simple unchanging four-chord progression, kept fresh by Steve Rowland’s production, which gradually layers on more instrumentation before stripping things back for the inevitable conclusion: “Every night it’s going to be the same old thing / Getting high, getting drunk, getting horny.”
5. “Sugar Man”Even in his wilderness years, Rodriguez’s signature tune somehow retained a life of its own. It received the dubious honor of being named one of MOJO’s “100 Greatest Drug Songs Ever.” It was sampled on a track from Nas’s Stillmatic album. And it appeared on the soundtrack for a Heath Ledger movie. Since the release of Searching for Sugar Man, the song has become a metonym for Rodriguez himself, with the mystery of his identity among South African fans paralleling his unseen title character. Its lyrics may be more forthcoming than comparators like Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man”, but the Sugar Man remains a Godot-like enigma, cloaked in an eerie sonic haze that encompasses horns, baritone saxophone and strange sci-fi sounds, created by manipulating the tape machine. More than any other Rodriguez song, this one creates a unique world for listeners to inhabit.
4. “Street Boy”Of the three songs Rodriguez recorded in the aftermath of his second album, this was the simplest–both in terms of its arrangement and its lyrical content, which concerns a young vagrant drawn to a life on the streets. But it’s an irresistible tune. A toe-tapper about a tragic figure may sound jarring, but Rodriguez’s dispassionate delivery sells it as always.
3. “Cause”Rodriguez’s second album was more uneven than his debut. But it ended with one of his greatest works. It’s probably the bleakest song in his catalogue, channeling images and characters (like the “Estonian Archangel”) reminiscent of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”, but taking melancholic resignation as its fuel, rather than the rage of the Beat Generation. The plaintive guitarwork is backed with an ambitious string arrangement, which may have worked to the detriment of other songs on the album, but is fully justified here.
2. “I Wonder”“I Wonder” is anchored by the strangest bass motif in Rodriguez’s back catalogue. It sounds so distracting that it shouldn’t work, but somehow it does. Even as it inevitably falls out of step with Rodriguez’s casual meter, it keeps working. Nowadays Pro Tools would iron out such kinks–and the song would be worse for it. Likewise, sticklers will quibble that Rodriguez’s line “I wonder about the loneliness that’s mine” doesn’t scan. But this looseness with the rules is part of the appeal. Indeed, his risqué query “I wonder how many times you had sex” is credited with driving his popularity in South Africa, where authoritarian lawmakers went so far as to outlaw television for fear of its corrupting influence. But putting all of this aside, “I Wonder” is simply a great song. Sometimes four verses and four choruses are all you need. And you can’t argue with perfection–even if you can point out its imperfections.
1. “Crucify Your Mind”Analyzing the full catalogue of Rodriguez’s recorded output, one is struck by how many of his songs are addressed to second-person characters. But none feels more intimate than “Crucify Your Mind”, even amidst its cruelty: “Soon I know I’ll leave you / And I’ll never look behind / ’Cause I was born for the purpose / That crucifies your mind.” Within the two dozen lines of abstract lyrics lie a hundred different interpretations, but its central themes are of loss and betrayal. When Rodriguez appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman after the release of Searching for Sugar Man, this was the song he chose to play, backed by no fewer than 20 musicians, including string and horn sections. It’s an epic live performance, but the more restrained studio recording finds an optimal balance, with an ingenious marimba fill that colors in the space between verses and a delayed entry for the bass guitar, which kicks in almost midway through the song to mirror a step-up in the accusatory lyrics. All in all, it’s a perfectly textured two-and-a-half-minute song-poem and the masterpiece of Rodriguez’s small but inestimable back catalogue.
Listen to Rodriguez’s Daytrotter session, which includes an exclusive recording of “Crucify Your Mind,” below:
