Searching For Sugar Man is a 2012 documentary film about a South African cultural phenomenon, written and directed by Malik Bendjelloul, which details the efforts in the late 1990s of two Cape Town fans, Stephen “Sugar” Segerman and Craig Bartholomew Strydom, to find out whether the rumoured death of American musician Sixto Rodriguez was true and, if not, to discover what had become of him. Rodriguez’s music, which had never achieved success in the United States, had become very popular in South Africa, although little was known about him in that country. On 10 February 2013, the film won the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary at the 66th British Academy Film Awards in London and two weeks later, it won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 85th Academy Awards in Hollywood.
It’s no secret that the renowned DJ, Gilles Peterson, has long been a fan of South African music, especially the sounds coming out of Cape Town. Gilles is a French broadcaster, DJ, and record label owner. He founded the influential labels Acid Jazz and Talkin’ Loud, and started his current label Brownswood Recordings in 2006. He was awarded an honorary MBE in 2004 and is currently hosting his very popular and acclaimed Saturday afternoon music program called ‘Joining The Musical Dots’ in which he features a mixed-up selection, “joining the musical dots” between soul, hip hop, house, afro, electronica, jazz and beyond”, in his own inimitable style.
On his recent ‘Joining the Musical Dots’ program, on Saturday 22nd October, Gilles played the brand new John Wizards’ track called ‘Rwangaguhunga’. Back In 2017 Gilles was one of the first DJ’s to pick up on the strange story and wonderful music of the Cape Town group John Wizards and brought them into his studio during their UK and Europe tour where they played live.
In August of that year, the British newspaper The Guardian’s music editor, Tim Jonze, wrote a feature on John Wizards, documenting how Emmanuel Nzaramba, a Rwandan car guard in Cape Town met John Withers, a South African advertising music writer, and after adding some of John’s musical friends to the band, they became John Wizards.
(L–R) Geoff Brink, Tom Parker, John Withers, Alex Montgomery, Emmanuel Nzaramba, Raphael Segerman | Sarah Thomas and John Wizards
The band later released its self-titled debut album, which showcased their unique sound featuring elements of R&B, soukous, Afropop, reggae, South African house, Shangaan electro, and dub, and included the singles ‘Lusaka by Night’ and ‘Muizenberg’. At the end of 2017, the band’s album appeared as No 8 on The Guardian’s list of the 40 best albums of the year.
The six piece band, consisting of vocalist and guitarist John Withers, vocalist Emmanuel Nzaramba, drummer and percussionist Raphael Segerman, bassist and keyboardist Alex Montgomery, guitarist Tom Parker and guitarist and keyboardist Geoff Brink, combined electronic sounds with more traditional African influences on their self-titled debut album, and the success of that album led to their touring extensively across Europe alongside Mount Kimbie and Jagwar Ma.
John Wizards effectively began when John Withers met Nzaramba outside a coffee shop in 2010 and the two became friends. They subsequently fell out of touch for a period. In 2012 they happened upon one another in Cape Town and it turned out they were both living on that same street. Prior to their meeting again, Withers had been working on recording and producing the set of musical ideas that would later become John Wizards’ self-titled release of September 2013.
Nzaramba added vocal recordings to some of the songs and began to perform with the rest of the band. John Wizards released a mix tape in August 2012 that roughly sketched out the songs to be included on the album. This mix tape was passed on to Mike Paradinas, owner of Planet Mu records. Planet Mu would announce the band as part of their roster in November 2012, releasing the album some ten months later.
In February 2017 Gilles visited Cape Town to record an audio documentary about the city’s musical heritage as part of Lufthansa City of the Month. The documentary followed Gilles over the course of a day as he set out to learn about the history of the city’s music, and infiltrate the dynamic contemporary scene. He began with the music of the Khoisan Bushmen, through to Cape Jazz of the ’60s, onto hip hop of the ’80s and ’90s, through to the spoken word and current musical climate of today. By discovering where the music was from and where it was going, Gilles discovered what makes Cape Town so special.
Gilles Peterson presents Cape Town Sounds
In the documentary, Gilles visited a bunch of the local music scenes’ leaders to hear their stories. From jazz musician Tony Cedras to spoken word artist Khadija Tracey Heeger, local hip hop legend DJ Ready D, the Chimurenga crew, legendary A&R Donald ‘Jumbo’ Van Renen through to today’s upfront talent like Nonku Phiri! The show also featured tracks by Tony Cedras, Miriam Makeba, Dollar Brand, Jumbo Track, Black Disco and more.
Stephen “Sugar” Segerman, Gilles Peterson, DJ Mighty, Jacques Vosloo | Mabu Vinyl Basement, 3 February 2017
On that trip, Gilles also visited the iconic Cape Town record shop, Mabu Vinyl, where he met the shop’s founder and owner Jacques Vosloo, as well as the staff like DJ Mighty, SA online music guru Brian Currin and Stephen ‘Sugar’ Segerman of ‘Searching For Sugar Man’ fame.
Gilles Peterson 2022-10-22 Joining the Musical Dots: Alabaster dePlume & Friends, Kay Suzuki
On Saturday’s ‘Joining The Musical Dots’ program, after playing the newly-released John Wizards’ track ‘Rwangaguhunga’ (starting at about 24 minutes), Gilles also mentioned that the drummer from John Wizards, Raphael Segerman, is also the son of Stephen ‘Sugar’ Segerman, thereby “joining the musical dots” between John Wizards and Sixto Rodriguez followed by his playing of Rodriguez singing his own track, ‘Can’t Get Away’.
Released On: 01 Sep 2022, available for over a year
Stephen ‘Sugar’ Segerman’s nickname came from the song Sugar Man by the American singer Rodriguez. In 1970s South Africa, Rodriguez was a household name as his anti-establishment lyrics resonated with many of those opposed to the strict apartheid state. Sugar, a Cape Town record shop owner, was one of his adoring fans. Very little was known about Rodriguez, apart from that he was dead; rumour had it that he’d killed himself during an unsuccessful concert. But years later, when Sugar decided to find out that had happened to him, he uncovered something astonishing.
Presenter: Emily Webb Producer: Emily Webb and Emily Naylor
Please join us in wishing Rodriguez a Happy Birthday on the occasion of his 80th Birthday which falls on July 10th!
On behalf of all of us at the official Rodriguez website, Sugarman.org, we send our warmest wishes to Rodriguez and we hope that he has a wonderful day celebrating with his family, and that he is blessed with a Peaceful, Joyful, and Healthy year!
For all of his fans around the world, who would like to join us in sending warm wishes to Rodriguez, please feel free to do so by posting your messages here: https://www.facebook.com/SugarMan.org/
Sending Our Warmest Regards and Greeting to you all, from South Africa!
Brian, Sugar and Craig.
Sugar, Brian, Eva, Craig, David 5 March 1998Rodriguez received gold record recognition in The Netherlands from Sony Music.Willem Moller, Rodriguez, Brian Currin, Sugar Segerman | 2 March 1998Live Fact InsideWillem, Rodriguez, Brian, Sugar 2 March 1998rodriguez uncut july 2013Sixto Rodriguez performs during a sold out concert at the Masonic Temple in Detroit on Saturday, May 18, 2013. The “Searching for Sugar Man” star is performing for his biggest home crowd ever.
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rodriguez enmore190313 med 6y9a2132rodriguez enmore190313 med 6y9a2103Craig, Sugar and OscarSearching for Sugar Man” star Rodriguez appears to be staying put in Detroit – even if he wins an Oscar next month. Associated PressRodriguezCold Fact
We have just watched your documentary and think there should be more people like you in the world who share the wealth of their love as well as in other ways too. You have been an incredible father to your daughters who seem in awe of you and grateful for the life you provided for them. Your music is so poetic and beautiful and we would love to hear you in one final tour, or maybe a live performance recorded in Detroit?
Sending love and so much gratitude for you in the world.
When Rodriguez walked out onto the stage in Cape Town back in 1998 to kick off his first ever SA tour, he thanked the audience for keeping him alive. And a large part of that thanks could have been directed towards Ard Mathews and Just Jinger as their cover version of the Rodriguez classic, ‘Sugarman’, was probably as important in bringing the Detroit musician to a new generation of fans as the army call up was to his first South African fans.
‘Cold Fact’, the Rodriguez album that contained ‘Sugarman’ had been around since the late 60’s early 70’s and seemed to live in the air we breathed back then. Nearly every white South African home had a copy of the album and everyone knew the song. It seemed only natural then for someone to cover it, but strangely it had to wait till the 90’s before Just Jinger plucked up the courage to take on such a revered song. And they did the right thing with their cover as it is as straight forward a cover of an original as one could get. Just about the only difference between the original and the JJ’s version is Ard’s grungey vocals compared to Rodriguez’s folky ones.
So what, you may ask, is the point of producing a cover that is pretty much the same as the original? Well, I think that the fact that Just Jinger didn’t deviate too far from the original shows their huge respect for the song and the singer as they didn’t want to mess too much with the original, seeing it as perfection in itself, so they could only imitate and not add to it. The second reason that this was an important cover was laid out in the first paragraph of this article. Just Jinger were becoming one of the biggest bands in the land and the fact that they tipped their hat to this classic song had their younger fans digging out their moms and dads CDs to check out the original.
At the time Just Jinger covered this track, there was hardly another cover of the track, let alone a cover of any other Rodriguez tracks out there (there were some and a list of pre-‘Searching For Sugar Man’ covers can be found here: http://sugarman.org/coverversions.html). Just Jinger with their excellent and timely cover of the track helped keep Rodriguez alive and well and they did so reverentially, letting the song take the limelight. This would have to go down as one of the greatest covers of an international track by an SA band.
Steve Louw and his band Big Sky appeared with Rodriguez on the sold-out South African tour in 1998 as featured in the Oscar-winning film “Searching For Sugar Man“.
Here is the official video for “Train Don’t Run”, created by Jacqui van Staden. From the album “Headlight Dreams“, produced by Kevin Shirley and released 7 May 2021.
… my favourite track on this album is the almost proggish “Train Don’t Run”. Clocking in at seven and half minutes this is an epic tune that you hope never finishes. There is a soaring guitar solo by Rob McNelley that David Gilmour fans will love. No surprise to discover that this track was mixed on the same console as the classic “Dark Side Of The Moon“.
My grandfather was a railroadman and in the 1930s my father rode trains looking for work. To me, trains symbolise our attempts to bend nature to our will – and we’re seeing that trying to do that will never work. Silence will always return to the plains, the wind will blow, tracks will crumble and the earth will breathe again. This song has the wide open plains in it; dry cracked earth and a broken land.
The song builds from a driving acoustic guitar and hypnotic bassline to a haunting guitar solo by Rob McNeeley. The production (by Kevin Shirley) brings out the relentlessness of the song and of what we inflict on our planet.
Steve Louw
TRAIN DON’T RUN (Recorded February 27, 2020)
The wind blows across empty plains That hold so many bones The rails glow years since the rain Horses roam on broken stones Train don’t run round here no more Train is gone for us all
Put down a coin on the track Saw silver turn through black Seeds thrown all come back Haunt the earth broken and cracked Train don’t run round here no more Train won’t come for us all
I can help you cross if you’ll let me Spirits roam across this broken land What’s been lost you can see Count the cost can’t understand Train don’t run round here no more Train is gone for us all
This documentary was shown on South African Television this week, 20 years ago.
Footage from this documentary features strongly in the Oscar winning film, Searching For Sugar Man.
Dead Men Don’t Tour
Directed by Tonia Selley and featuring Big Sky, “Dead Men Don’t Tour”, was first broadcast on SABC 3 at 9.30pm on the 5th July 2001 just after ‘Ripley’s Believe Or Not’.
This film features wonderful concert footage, backstage antics, interviews with Craig Bartholomew Strydom and Stephen “Sugar” Segerman, Rodriguez and his family, the promoters, the fans and the musicians.
All live footage was filmed at the concerts in Pretoria, Durban and the Blues Room in Johannesburg.
The soundtrack for the documentary is based on the Live Fact CD with video collages from the various performances. The concert footage is linked with interviews, backstage antics, rehearsals, etc.
I Wonder
Inner City Blues
Jane S. Piddy
Sugar Man
A Most Disgusting Song
Like Janis
Establishment Blues
Climb Up On My Music
I Wonder by Generation EXT (filmed during the studio recording)
Forget It
Produced by Incha Productions Executive producers: Georgina Parkin and Charles Watson Directed by Tonia Selley Edited by Cathy Winter
March 1998 (left-to-right): Willem Moller, Sixto Rodriguez, Tonia Selley, Steve Louw, Graeme Currie, Reuben Samuels, kneeling front: Russel Taylor
April 6 2021, Capetown, SA: Today, much-revered South African singer/songwriter/guitarist, Steve Louw releases, “Crazy River,” the first track from his forthcoming album, Headlight Dreams to be released in May via BFD/The Orchard.
The song itself is an upbeat, transcendent ode to the beauty of a river, its timelessness against the impermanent world it runs through, and the aspects of ourselves that long to be just like it. Louw, with a rich lifetime of music making under the belt, gets it and embraces the moment. The video puts him occasionally front and center, singing and playing with millennial enthusiasm, yet with the confidence that experience brings, his image juxtaposed with footage and stills of lives lived large against a backdrop of mountains, valleys and rapids. So lush is it all that one could just jump at the screen before getting a hold of themselves.
Says Louw of the song, “I once took a long canoe trip down the Colorado River, through the Grand Canyon and out again. It was a very spacy spiritual place and it felt like I was on a journey to the middle of the earth. I wrote this after the trip. On one level the song is about the river trip and the journey deep inside the raw power and beating heart of nature, but it also reflects on time, our time on Earth, how we experience it, and how the bonds of deep personal relationships with our fellow travellers nurture our souls. I played the acoustic guitar using a few African-style riffs and the band picked up on that feel. Guitarist Rob McNelley contributed beautiful slide guitar.”
From the moment he jumped into the South African music scene in the eighties, he was swimming with the best of em. At that time, he fronted All Night Radio, a group that would release two hit records, The Heart’s the Best Part (1984) and The Killing Floor (1986) and establish Louw as a force to be reckoned with on the SA music scene. But in 1990, Steve achieved legendary status after forming Big Sky, who won the honour of Best South African Rock Act in 1996 and were subsequently accepted into the SA Rock Hall of Fame. In 1998, they supported Rodriguez on tour and were incidentally featured in the film, Searching For Sugar Man.
In 2003, Steve collaborated with Dave Stewart (Eurythmics), Anastacia and Brian May (Queen) on a song called “Amandla” that was performed for the Madiba’s 46664 concert in Cape Town by Beyonce and Bono.
He also played and recorded with the aforementioned Rodriguez, Blondie Chaplin and Kevin Shirley, who produced Headlight Dreams. The new album also features a guest spot from heroic guitarist Joe Bonamassa on “Wind In Your Hair.”
Hello! I might be one of the last people in the U.S. to see the Searching For Sugar Man documentary – I was so moved, laughing and crying with my friend who checked it out from the public library to share with me.
My friend also had his Cold Fact CD, which I am about to rip into my iTunes Library… on the condition that I can pay Sixto Rodriguez directly. After watching the documentary and reading a few articles, I have zero confidence that purchasing any of his albums new results in revenue or royalties ever actually reach Rodriguez. So, can someone direct if he accepts Venmo or PayPal, or maybe Patreon. I poked around on this website and on the Rodriguez YouTube channel – where found a Facebook comment feed with comments similar to my feelings about buying Rodriguez albums and merch, worrying about others profiting, but him never seeing a cent. Most of us were probably not surprised about the mercenary nature of the music industry already, but Rodriguez’ story has got to be the worst of the worst as far as exploitation and fraud. Considering what Rodriguez has already been through, it seems like insult to injury to enthusiastically purchase his albums now, only to have it again get sucked down some hole… right into someone else’s pocket.
If anyone can direct me to a legit avenue to purchase his albums and/or make a direct payment to him, please let me know! I will keep looking until I find a way.
Hi there. My wife and I have just seen the documentary about this fantastic story. It’s absolutely incredible, we sat on our settee with tears in our eyes
… The success that you received was thoroughly deserved, well done to everyone concerned… Long may this story continue.. Take care and good luck from Paris, France
Hello I am Danny Tyrell a local Detroit musician. When you were making the movie I was working with Dennis Coffey as keyboardist. I recall Dennis and Mike meeting in the breaks of a gig And Dennis briefly mentioned the project. As years went on I left the group and Went on to develop a music program in 4 rehab centers helping people recover from drugs. One day early on I played your movie at an evening session and the response was magical. A few guys weeped. Great discussion ensued. Over time I believe I showed your story 100’s of times. Frequently we would split it into two nights. The patients write success stories and write to you. Dennis agreed to deliver these to you when he joined your tour at one time. I could not get clearance to release them. It did not happen. I always wanted to let you know how your story affected others giving them hope. There IS a part 2. A few years I had health challenges And found your movie once again as inspiration to go on. You have been a blessing to many. I can testify to that. Thank you for the generous story
Just wish to say thank you for your music. I have been an instant fan the minute I saw Searching for Sugarman. I wonder (no pun intended) how you are these days and what you think about the times we are living in now. I hope you are writing new songs because I feel your voice and music could be a big help in the ongoing press for change in the USA and the rest of the west.
Hope to see one of your concerts this year. Peace to you and your family.
Love from Canada.
SugarMan.org 