CATEYE Spectacles

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Searching for "Sugar Man" on Valentines Day

Imagine that everyone is going crazy over your music that you wrote decades ago and believes that you are dead. This is the story of the folk singer Sixto Rodriguez. Sixto grew up in Detroit, Michigan, the sixth child of Mexican immigrant parents. (Hence his name) In the late 60's he released a single I'll Slip Away and was signed to Sussex Records around 1970. He released two LP's with Sussex Records; Cold Fact in 1970 and Coming From Reality in 1971. After poor sales of these two LP's in the US, he was dropped from the Sussex label and Sussex subsequently folded. It was 1975 and Sixto had almost finished his next LP before being dropped. He ended up giving up his music and working different industry jobs around Detroit.

Meanwhile, in different parts of the world, his music had gained following in Australia, New Zealand, Botswana and Rhodesia. After most copies of his work were sold out in the late 70's, an Australian record company, Blue Goose, purchased all of his back catalogue and released some LP's. Sixto ended up touring in Australia around 1979 and then returned to his normal life back in Detroit. Somehow after this time people began to believe he had died because a title of one of the Blue Goose albums was Alive.

In 1991, both of his albums were released for the first time in South Africa and the legend of his death continued. One of the albums actually went platinum and his music became an anti-apartheid anthem there. Despite having a huge following in this country, Sixto had no idea this was happening. It was only in 1998 when his daughter discovered a website devoted to him in South Africa, did he realize how much of a legend he actually was. The motion picture Searching For Sugarman was released last year to much acclaim and won an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2013. Cateye Spectacles has some inventory that evokes a Sixto style in stock shown below. Call for pricing.

The Cateye Spectacles Caine Suns