Belated Fame Abroad
After failing to make an impact in North America, Rodríguez gave up his career as a musician. Although he was relatively unknown in his home country, by the mid-1970s, his albums were starting to gain airplay in South Africa, Botswana, Rhodesia, New Zealand, and Australia.
After imported copies of his Sussex albums ran dry, an Australian record label, Blue Goose Music, bought the Australian rights to his back catalogue in the mid-1970s. Blue Goose released his two studio albums plus a compilation album At His Best (featuring unreleased recordings from 1973 "Can't Get Away", "I'll Slip Away", and "Street Boy").
With a new buzz around Rodriguez, in 1979 he toured Australia with the Mark Gillespie Band as support. Two shows from the tour were later released on the Australian-only album Alive—the title being a play on the rumors caused by his public obscurity that he had died years ago. After the 1979 tour, he returned to Australia for a final tour in 1981 with Midnight Oil before quietly slipping back into normal life.
Unbeknownst to Rodríguez, At His Best went platinum in South Africa, which at one stage was the major disc-press interest supplying his music to the rest of the world. He would often be compared to successful contemporaries such as Bob Dylan. Additionally, some of his songs came to serve as anti-Apartheid anthems in South Africa, where his work influenced many musicians who protested the government. It has been reported that anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko was a Rodríguez fan.
In 1991, both his albums were released on CD in South Africa for the first time, which helped perpetuate his already existent fame. Even in South Africa, however, few details of his life were known to his fans and it was widely rumored and believed that Rodríguez had killed himself during a concert in the 1970s.
Despite the magnitude of his success abroad, Rodríguez's fame in South Africa had remained completely unknown to him until 1998, when his eldest daughter came across a website dedicated to him. After coming into contact with the authors of the website and learning of his long-standing fame in the country, Sixto went on his first South African tour, playing six concerts in front of thousands of fans. A documentary about the tour, Dead Men Don't Tour: Rodríguez in South Africa 1998, was later screened on SABC TV in 2001. Later he played in Sweden before returning to South Africa in 2001 and 2005.
In 1998, his signature song, "Sugar Man", was covered by the South African rock band Just Jinjer. In 2002, the song was used by DJ David Holmes to open his mix album Come Get It I Got It, gaining Rodríguez international airplay again. "Sugar Man" had previously been sampled in the song "You're Da Man" from rapper Nas' 2001 album Stillmatic.
In April 2007 and 2010, he returned to Australia to play the East Coast Blues & Roots Music Festival, as well as shows in Melbourne and Sydney. His song "Sugar Man" was featured in the 2006 film Candy, starring Heath Ledger. Cornish singer-songwriter, Ruarri Joseph, covered Rodríguez's song "Rich Folks Hoax" for his third studio album. Rodríguez now continues to tour in various countries.
Rodríguez's albums Cold Fact and Coming from Reality were re-released by Light in the Attic Records in 2009.
Read more about this topic: Sixto Diaz Rodriguez
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