Sixto Rodriguez The Uninformed Legend Maimouna Siby
Imagine being a folk artist in the 1970’s with relatively no commercial success in America, being dropped from a record label and having to turn to the callous streets of Detroit in search for another source of income while, simultaneously, in South Africa, your albums and songs are so famous you are equated to the likes of Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, and the Rolling Stones. Sounds outrageous, but this is the story of Sixto Rodriguez. Born in Detroit, Michigan Sixto Rodriguez was a Mexican American folk singer and songwriter[1]. Signed to Sussex Records in 1970, Sixto put his all into recording two different albums Cold Fact and Coming from Reality. Rodriguez’s
sound received great reviews from producers, he had all the machinery in place and the circumstances were right. Rowland, who produced Rodriguez’s second album Coming from Reality, posits that although he has worked with Jerry Lee Lewis, Gloria Gaynor, The Cure and many more talented and famous artists Rodriguez was his most memorable. Rowland held that Rodriguez was “not just a talent, he’s like a wise man, a prophet, he’s way beyond just being a musical artist.”1 Both albums were released but nobody in America had even heard or developed an interest in him. While Rodriguez has little to no success in