Twenty-five years after hearing those records, they spotted the word Dearborn in one of his songs. So record store owner Segerman and his friends started investigating. It was probably the most grotesque suicide in rock history.īut there was no proof. He set himself alight on stage and burnt to death in front of the audience. Steve Segerman: Then we found out that he had committed suicide. South Africans were buying half a million of his records and were astonished to learn that no one else in the world had ever heard of him. And then we found out it's OK to protest against your society, to be angry with your society. Steve Segerman: We didn't know what the word anti-establishment was until it cropped up on a Rodriguez song. This system's gonna fall soon, to an angry young tune Public gets irate, but forgets the vote date The mayor hides the crime rate, councilwoman hesitates Rodriguez's lyrics resonated with people who'd had it with the system. It was the 1970s and under apartheid political repression was at its height. To us, it was one of the most famous records of all time. If you walked into a random white, liberal, middle-class household that had a turntable and a pile of pop records and you would always see "Cold Fact" by Rodriguez. Steve Segerman: To many of us South Africans he was the soundtrack to our lives. How can that be? How can that be?Īnd how could it be that no one in America knew that Rodriguez had become an icon in South Africa? Steve Segerman owns a record store in Cape Town. nobody even was interested in listening to him. Steve Rowland: Nobody in America had even heard of him. Steve Rowland was responsible for his second. The only writer that I had heard of at that time period was maybe Bob Dylan, that was writing that well.Ĭoffey co-produced his first album, "Cold Fact." Critics liked it, but it bombed. And it was definitely a very gritty look at what he saw on the streets of Detroit. You know, putting his poems to music of what he saw. The film shows Rodriguez's old neighborhood in downtown Detroit and the smoky bar where, back in the late 60s, he was discovered by Dennis Coffey, a legendary Motown producer.ĭennis Coffey: We thought he was like the inner city poet. It's released by Sony Pictures Classics and called "Searching for Sugar Man."
The film, now captivating audiences across the country, is being talked about as a possible candidate for an Academy Award. Then, four years ago, a young Swedish filmmaker heard about Rodriguez - decided to shoot a documentary about him. Rodriguez shied away from camera's spotlight 01:13