‘Searching for Sugar Man’ Subject Rodriguez Dies at 81
variety.comChris Morris Music ReporterRodriguez, the singer-songwriter whose improbable, stranger-than-fiction career was surveyed in the Oscar-winning 2012 documentary “Searching For Sugar Man,” died on August 9.
He was 81. The news was announced on his official website.“It is with great sadness that we at Sugarman.org announce that Sixto Diaz Rodriguez has passed away earlier today,” the official statement read. “We extend our most heartfelt condolences to his daughters – Sandra, Eva and Regan – and to all his family.
Rodriguez was 81 years old. May His Dear Soul Rest In Peace.”Born Sixto Rodriguez and billed solely with his last name, the Detroit native worked on a Chrysler assembly line while playing in the Motor City clubs.
He attracted the attention of producers Mike Theodore and Dennis Coffey (the latter a noted local guitarist). They produced Rodriguez’s 1970 debut “Cold Fact” for the independent Los Angeles label Sussex Records. “We thought he was like the inner city poet, putting his poems to music,” Coffey said in director Malik Bendejelloul’s award-winning feature.Both that album and its successor “Coming From Reality,” recorded in London the following year by Steve Rowland, were commercial failures, and by December 1971 Rodriguez had been dropped by Sussex.
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