Mexican-American singer Sixto Rodriguez, long forgotten before the Oscar-winning documentary Searching For Sugar Man bring him back into the light, died Tuesday at age 81, according to a statement posted on his official website.
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“ It is with great sadness that we at Sugarman.org have to announce that Sixto Diaz Rodriguez passed away earlier today “, indicates the press release, without specifying the cause of his death.
The singer, who had released two albums to general indifference in the United States in the 1970s, had unknowingly become an idol in South Africa. A copy of one of his records had landed there by chance and his music with libertarian accents had become the anthem of progressive white youth exasperated by apartheid.
His success is such that for years, the craziest legends run about him, including his suicide on stage by immolation. Until two fans, while trying to elucidate the mystery of his death, discover terrified that he is very much alive, and bring him to South Africa, where he will be welcomed as a hero in 1998, for six sold-out concerts. closed.
An Oscar-winning documentary about its history
His romantic destiny had been the subject of documentary Searching For Sugar Man, directed by the Swedish Malik Bendjelloul and awarded at the Oscars in 2013. The success of the film had offered late fame to Sixto Rodriguez who, after the failure of his albums, had abandoned music to convert to building sites and construction. She had also given new visibility to her titles, including the emblematic sugar man Or I Wonder. After the release of the documentary, he had given several concerts in Europe and the United States.
“It is a monument in South Africa »
In the documentary, he seemed detached, rather amused by this recognition. But his precarious economic situation was also evident: he never touched a penny of his hundreds of thousands of albums sold in South Africa.
Read also“Searching for Sugar Man” or how a documentary can change your life
” South Africa was dear to Sixto Rodriguez, and vice versa. When he came out of the shadows, was found and came back to South Africa, he realized he was a rock god for us here. He gave a concert in which the public knew all his songs by heart “recalls Stephen Segerman, the former record store behind the rediscovery of Sixto Rodriguez.
” Today his music is not only played on the radio, it is still very popular, it is covered a lot, he has given many concerts here, it is a monument in South Africa adds Segerman.
The incredible story of Sixto Rodriguez, gifted folk music unjustly forgotten
(With AFP)