SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Sixto Rodriguez was a rock star who did not even understand it for years.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “SUGAR MAN”)

SIXTO RODRIGUEZ: (Singing) Sugar man.

SIMON: Launched two albums within the early Nineteen Seventies. They went nowhere in America. However in South Africa, he grew to become a megastar.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “SUGAR MAN”)

RODRIGUEZ: (Singing) For a blue coin, will not you deliver again all these colours to my goals?

SIMON: Sixto Rodriguez died this week. In response to his web site, he was born and raised in Detroit, the sixth little one of Mexican immigrants. He informed NPR’s Joel Rose in 2008 that when he recorded his debut album “Chilly Truth” with a bunch of Motown Information session gamers…

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

RODRIGUEZ: We thought we was going to occur, you understand? And all the pieces regarded good. However there is no ensures in music.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “INNER CITY BLUES”)

RODRIGUEZ: (Singing) Met a lady from Dearborn, early 6 o’clock this morn’, a chilly reality.

SIMON: He would report one other album “Coming From Actuality.” It additionally flopped. As he informed us in 2012, he needed to work for a dwelling.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

RODRIGUEZ: I did demolition. I might renovate properties and buildings and residence and Detroit, and that is what I used to be doing. After which I simply – I left the music scene. So I principally went again to work.

SIMON: However whereas Sixto Rodriguez light into obscurity right here, his music lived on in South Africa.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THE ESTABLISHMENT BLUES”)

RODRIGUEZ: (Singing) The mayor hides the crime charges, councilwoman hesitates. The general public will get irate however forgets the vote dates.

SIMON: No one’s fairly positive how the music discovered its option to the apartheid state. However its anti-establishment lyrics appealed to younger Afrikaners. Sixto Rodriguez grew to become beloved. As Cape City Information retailer proprietor Stephen Segerman informed NPR in 2008…

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

STEPHEN SEGERMAN: The rumor was that he was useless, that he died in numerous very unusual methods. He set himself on fireplace on stage. He died in jail. All people had a narrative.

SIMON: The late Malik Bendjelloul, who made an Oscar-winning documentary about Sixto Rodriguez, informed us that within the Nineteen Nineties, a few folks from South Africa tried to seek out out what occurred to their favourite musician.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

MALIK BENDJELLOUL: After years of search, they discovered the producer of the album. They name him, and they’re, like, filled with questions. They ask, how was the album made? And crucial factor, how did he die? And he says, no, I noticed Rodriguez this morning. He is dwelling down the road. They usually referred to as Rodriguez, they usually inform him, you are greater than Elvis. And he, you understand, hangs up the cellphone. He thinks it is a crank name; it is this sensible joke. So that they name him once more. They stated, hear, hear, that is true. Did you make an album referred to as “Chilly Truth”? Yeah, yeah. That is my album. In South Africa, it is extra well-known than “Abbey Street.”

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “I WONDER”)

RODRIGUEZ: (Singing) I ponder in regards to the love you possibly can’t discover. And I ponder in regards to the loneliness that is mine.

SIMON: Later within the Nineteen Nineties, Sixto Rodriguez would tour South Africa, and he was acquired rapturously.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

RODRIGUEZ: The primary tour was simply – we did Cape City, Durban by the Indian Ocean, and we did Johannesburg. The viewers was simply so younger and so – simply brilliant faces in entrance of me.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

RODRIGUEZ: Johannesburg.

(CHEERING)

SIMON: He informed NPR in 2008 he was shocked by his followers.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

RODRIGUEZ: My viewers is Afrikaans, and it is type of attention-grabbing. , I anticipated third world, disgruntled or one thing, you understand? Nevertheless it’s fairly not that.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

RODRIGUEZ: (Singing) Was it a huntsman or a participant that made you pay the prices that now assumes relaxed positions and prostitutes your loss? Had been you tortured by your personal thirsts and people pleasures that you just search, that made you Tom the curious, that makes you James the weak?

SIMON: The phrases and music of Sixto Rodriguez, who died this week at 81.

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