SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

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

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “SUGAR MAN”)

SIXTO RODRIGUEZ: (Singing) Sugar man.

SIMON: Launched two albums within the early 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 convey again all these colours to my desires?

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

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

RODRIGUEZ: We thought we was going to occur, you recognize? And all the pieces seemed good. However there isn’t any ensures in music.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “INNER CITY BLUES”)

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

SIMON: He would report one other album “Coming From Actuality.” It additionally flopped. As he instructed 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 pale 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 person’s fairly certain how the music discovered its method 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 instructed 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 hearth on stage. He died in jail. Everyone had a narrative.

SIMON: The late Malik Bendjelloul, who made an Oscar-winning documentary about Sixto Rodriguez, instructed us that within the Nineteen Nineties, a few individuals 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, stuffed with questions. They ask, how was the album made? And an important 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 recognize, hangs up the telephone. He thinks it is a crank name; it is this sensible joke. So that they name him once more. They stated, pay attention, pay attention, that is true. Did you make an album referred to as “Chilly Reality”? 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 may’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 shiny faces in entrance of me.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

RODRIGUEZ: Johannesburg.

(CHEERING)

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

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

RODRIGUEZ: My viewers is Afrikaans, and it is form of fascinating. You understand, I anticipated third world, disgruntled or one thing, you recognize? But it surely’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? Have been you tortured by your personal thirsts and people pleasures that you simply 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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