Though industry-wise it was met with positive reviews, commercially the album gathered only dust. Being Sussex' first release, the resulting Cold Fact was a stone-cold folk-rock classic with an otherworldly feel to it. Recording Rodriguez separately, they afterwards matched his voice and acoustic guitar to a sonic palette of various orchestrations and psychedelic effects. Naturally, Theodore and Coffey took up keyboard and guitar duties, in addition to employing second wave Motown Funk Brothers for a rhythm section.
About to set up his Sussex label, the latter was genuinely impressed with the artist's take on Detroit street life and supplied Theo-Coff Productions with sufficient means to cut an album's worth of material. When Balk took off for a career as a creative director at Motown, session players and ardent Rodriguez supporters Dennis Coffey and Mike Theodore put him under the attention of Clarence Avant. Dividing his time between hanging around the university campus and playing assorted unconventional clubs and bars, he was introduced to Impact's Harry Balk, which led to the recording of his first single "I'll Slip Away" in 1967. As a consequence, much of his repertoire remains a big favorite of singalongs at an average "Braai", or barbecue party.īorn in Detroit in 1942, Sixto Diaz Rodriguez originated from a working-class background and dropped out of high school at the age of 16. However politically incorrect this must seem, their longing for the Vietnam era - when smoking grass and listening to Rodriguez' thought-provoking lyrics was viewed as a means of rebelling against their own ultra-conservative government - comes across as perfectly imaginable. As Dutch national newspaper NRC Handelsblad discovered in 2005, young white South Africans who had been enlisted with the national service had embraced Rodriguez as their own counterculture Hendrix.
Hopelessly obscure in the United States during his formative years as Detroit's answer to Dylan via Motown and Bacharach, in South Africa the artist notoriously remains a nostalgic reminder of apartheid. Psychedelic rock from USA, full-length discography f two albums released in 19.Īnother serious contester for the title of "artist least likely to enjoy a major career re-estimation," the story of cult enigma Rodriguez is nonetheless characterized by recurring moments of renaissance, sprawled over four decades and as many continents. Sixto Rodriguez - Full-Length Discography (1970-1971)
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