Searching for Sugar Man

Overview

Ten years ago, during a year abroad backpacking, I was living in Seattle. Wandering into one of the city's many vintage stores, I was struck by the beautiful music playing, which sounded like '60s Dylan, yet I didn't recognise the song. Further enquiry led to the revelation that it was, in fact, a little-known singer called Rodriguez, a contemporary of Dylan's for sure, but who had slipped by virtually unnoticed. Fast forward to 2012, and I am reminded of the enigmatic musician once more.

In the late 1960s, Sixto Rodriguez was making waves playing guitar and singing in bars around his native Detroit. The down-and-out singer, who at the time may not even have had a fixed abode, was discovered by producing legends Mike Theodore and Steve Rowland. His debut album, Cold Fact, was released in 1970, followed closely by Coming from Reality a year later. Though these were considered masterpieces by many in the music industry, they failed to make even a small splash, slipping away into obscurity virtually unnoticed, as did the musician who made them; however, in a parallel country, or reality, as it were, a completely different story was unfolding.

Searching for Sugar Man tells how the singer Rodriguez became the voice for a generation of liberal white South Africans during the height of the Apartheid years. I've verified this fact with a South African friend, and he's assured me he can sing the lyrics to several of his songs. It's not clear how the music got there, but it has been speculated that a bootlegged cassette tape copy of Cold Fact may have been brought back from the States by a South African girl. Firm figures for sales of his records are not available, but the South African RPM Records estimate them to be at least half a million. Yet little was known about this incredibly popular artist and rumours abounded that the singer was dead, having committed suicide on stage in a most gruesome fashion.

In the late '90s two South Africans — one a journalist, Craig Bartholomew, the other a record shop owner, Stephen 'Sugar' Segerman — teamed up to solve the mystery. They had little more to go on than the lyrics of Rodriguez's songs, the world wide web yet to have thrown its ubiquitous, all-knowing embrace around us. As they delved deeper, awakening several sleeping canines, a story began to unfold, much more remarkable than either of them could have foretold. A few years later, Swedish TV documentary-maker, Malik Bendjelloul, was on an overseas trip in South Africa looking for new ideas when he discovered the subject and instantly seized upon it for his next film, which he wrote, edited, and directed.

The documentary cleverly weaves an intricate tale, filled with intrigue, quirky anecdotes, and moving personal histories, though it does leave many questions unanswered (such as, what happened to royalties?). It also reveals relatively little about Rodriguez's life over the last 30 years, the narrative focussing much more on the South African side of things. But to levy criticism in Bedejelloul's direction on these grounds would be unfair. After all, documentary filmmaking is by its very nature subjective. One could even argue that the genre itself can be defined as the art of telling a good story well, in which case he has done a stellar job. Furthermore, 30 years is a lot to fit into a mere 86 minutes.

Take my advice and don't research the backstory too much; maybe watch the trailer and listen to a few Rodriguez tracks beforehand. Then go and see this documentary and let the emotive story and incredible music sweep you away.