Searching for the wrong man

Published Sep 17, 2015

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Like many South Africans in the ‘70s and ‘80s, Stephen ‘Sugar’ Segerman and Craig Bartholomew Strydom were obsessed with the music of Rodriguez, but the man himself was a mystery. After years of searching, they found the singer living in seclusion in Detroit. In 2006, Swedish film-maker Malik Bendjelloul stumbled on this remarkable tale and made the Oscar-winning documentary. Sugar Man: The Life, Death and Resurrection of Sixto Rodriguez, which tells their story

By mid-1997, after an exhausting search, Craig Bartholomew Strydom was on the verge of cracking wide open the mystery of Sugar Man. After months of dead ends, he had finally secured the number of Mike Theodore, co-producer of the masterpiece, Cold Fact.

Yes. Yes! Craig air-punched with his fist. The thrill of writing down Theodore’s number was immeasurable.

He immediately dialled the US number, forgetting the time difference.

An answering machine kicked in and a nasal American voice invited him to leave a message, which he promptly did. Craig could barely sleep that night. He was so close to finding the truth about what happened to Rodriguez.

The next morning, his phone rang. When he answered, he heard the same voice from the answering machine. The blood drained from his legs. It was Mike Theodore. Craig introduced himself and reached for his pen and notepad. Mike was curt at first, unsure what this call from South Africa was all about.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

Craig explained the situation. He told Mike how, for the past however many years, the music of Jesus Rodriguez had sold and sold in South Africa. How no one knew anything about the musician, not even the record companies that had distributed his albums over the years. How nearly every white person on the streets of South Africa could recite any one of a number of Rodriguez songs in their sleep. How Rodriguez was a household name. And finally, how no one knew how he had died.

When he had finished, there was a pause at the other end of the line. Mike seemed genuinely surprised by what he was hearing. And then came the moment that Craig will never forget.

“Jesus is alive,” said Mike, dropping the bombshell, “but he ain’t the man you’re looking for. Jesus is only the brother. The one you’re looking for is Sixto – the principal solo artist known as Rodriguez.”

Craig was dumbstruck. All those years of wondering and over nine months of focused research had come down to this one moment. “Wait… wait a minute,” he stammered, “you mean the one whose voice we hear on Cold Fact, the one you call Sixto… he’s still alive?”

Mike, calm and professional, answered in the affirmative. “Alive and kicking.”

“Alive?” Craig’s jaw dropped. He could feel his heart pounding.

Mike went on to say that he had absolutely no idea about the things Craig was telling him, no idea that the albums had sold in South Africa, let alone the cult status they had achieved. It was all news to him, and would be news to Rodriguez, too.

Mike and Motown session guitarist Dennis Coffey, both from Detroit, had produced Cold Fact in 1969 on Sussex Records, a label then owned by one Clarence Avant, “a great believer” in Rodriguez. Bingo! thought Craig. It was all coming together now. Except for one thing.

“But then,” asked Craig, “how come most of the songs are credited to Jesus and not Sixto?” There was a pause before Mike said, “Well, that was a political move.”

Craig was hoping for an explanation that would shed light on the drug, jail and fire theories that circulated in South Africa but none was forthcoming. So he asked Mike what he meant by “political”.

“Well, there’s political… and there’s political.”

The producer was being somewhat vague on that issue, so Craig moved on to another question. “Will Jesus… er… Sixto speak to me?”

“If Sixto wants to speak to you, then he will.”

“Did you actually tell him I called?” asked Craig, referring to the detailed message he’d left the day before.

“Yeah, it’s personal, you know. We’re trying to ascertain the status of each album. In fact, we’re in touch with Clarence Avant as we speak.”

Craig wanted to probe a little deeper. “Does Rodriguez own the rights to his songs?”

“Yes.”

“Did he play Woodstock?”

“No, but he did tour Australia. Lots of money of his was being held there at one time.”

Craig scratched his head. The plot thickened. Australia? “So what’s he doing today?”

“Same as before, playing music.”

“But will he talk to me?” Craig repeated.

“Well, let me just say this,” said Mike, “he has his own concept of the universe…”

When the call ended, Craig realised that he had information in his head that no one else in South Africa could even imagine. Forget about confirming rumours of Rodriguez’s suicide – the man was alive!

Craig wanted to run down the street and shout the news to anyone who would listen, but instead he broke the news to Sugar via e-mail.

Later on the phone, he told his fellow searcher about his call with Mike Theodore in greater detail. “Although we were a thousand kilometres apart,” Sugar would later write in his blog post “Sugar and the Sugar Man”, “Craig and I shared a telephone hug and dance when he told me the great news. What a day it had been.” A few days later, Craig typed the words “What happened to Rodriguez?” And so began the first draft of the article that would break the story. As the words of the article fell onto the page, Craig had no idea where this strange story would take him.

The article, published in the October issue of Directions magazine, may not have been Craig’s finest piece of journalism, but it was his most important.

He had sent an earlier draft to Mike Theodore, who had sent it to a certain Eva Koller in Junction City, Kansas.

Intrigued, Eva ran an internet search on Sixto Rodriguez’s name and South Africa. She had been shocked and surprised on reading the article to discover that the Sugar Man, who she knew as a failed musician-cum-handyman-cum-social activist, was actually a “somebody”, albeit on the other side of the world. And if Craig was to be believed, he had been a “somebody” for some time, give or take 25 years. And unless she was mistaken, the hard-working “singer” had not – to her knowledge – received as much as a dime from South Africa. During her internet search she stumbled upon the Great Rodriguez Hunt website. She couldn’t believe it. Navigating to the forum, she typed a message.

Hers was the fourth message posted: “Rodriguez is my father! I’m serious. He recently received an article from a journalist there who told him of the following. I went on line to try to find out more info and was shocked to see he has his own site. Truly amazing. Do you really what to know about my father? Sometimes the fantasy is better left alive. It is as unbelievable to me as it is to you.”

She signed off as Eva Alicia Rodriguez Koller. The date was Friday September 12, 1997.

Sugar could not believe what he was reading. A message from Rodriguez’s daughter! Thrilled, he picked up the phone to call her, but then remembered the time difference. He’d have to wait until that evening. When he eventually dialled and got through, it was an exciting conversation.

Sugar told Eva the whole surreal story about her father’s fame at the southernmost tip of Africa, and she in turn told Sugar about Rodriguez, how he was something of a recluse and was reluctant to give out his number. It was midnight by the time he put down the phone and, although he had work the next day, he struggled to sleep. Instead, he sat and mulled over the conversation.

At around 1am, just as he finally fell asleep, the phone rang. It was a strange hour for phone calls. His wife Ronit answered the phone. She looked at Sugar with an expression of awe as she mouthed the words, “It’s him!”

Sugar took the receiver. The voice at the other end of the line was unmistakable, with its soft R’s and American accent. In an unassuming tone, the voice said, “Is that Sugar? This is me, Rodriguez.”

Sugar almost dropped the phone from sheer excitement. Miraculously, the line was clear, allowing them to have a calm and quiet conversation. Sugar told Rodriguez about his cult status in South Africa and that all his albums, including the best of compilation, were available on CD and cassette.

Rodriguez in turn told Sugar that he would love to tour South Africa, as he had completed a very successful tour of Australia over 15 years earlier. In a manner that Sugar would later learn was typically Rodriguez, the singer mentioned he did not own a CD player but did have a reel-to-reel copy of Cold Fact. Only someone like Rodriguez would not even have CDs of his own work.

Before saying goodbye, Sugar promised to send him all the CDs via Eva. And that was how, for a brief moment, two continents collided and the frayed ends of a mystery were finally reconnected. It’s tempting at this point to throw out the hackneyed phrase, “And the rest is history.” But this was really just the beginning.

* This is an extract from Sugar Man: The Life, Death and Resurrection of Sixto Rodriguez by Craig Bartholomew Strydom and Stephen “Sugar” Segerman published by Penguin at a recommended retail price of R230.

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