Rodriguez’s Forgotten ‘70s Albums Make Their Vinyl Return | Forbes

OTTAWA, ON – SEPTEMBER 17: Rodriguez performs on day 5 of the CityFolk Festival at The Great Lawn at Lansdowne Park on September 17, 2017 in Ottawa, Canada. (Photo by Mark Horton/WireImage)WIREIMAGE

It’s one of pop music’s unlikeliest and greatest comeback stories ever: a Mexican-American singer-songwriter from Detroit named Sixto Rodriguez recorded two albums of psychedelic folk rock in the early 1970s that went nowhere in the U.S. upon their initial release; afterwards, he worked in construction. Unbeknownst to him, his music was a huge hit in South Africa, where his unsentimental and gritty outsider lyrics resonated with young liberal Afrikaners during that country’s policy of apartheid. Rodriguez’s impact on South Africa and his subsequent reemergence in the late 1990s–thanks to the efforts of some dedicated fans–formed the crux of the 2012 Academy Award-winning documentary Searching for Sugar Man, directed by the late Malik Bendjelloul. Due to the success of the film, Rodriguez’s music has experienced belated and renewed attention.

Read more at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidchiu/2019/09/11/rodriguezs-forgotten-70s-albums-make-their-vinyl-return/