Sixto Rodriguez - Hate Street Dialogue Sixto Rodriguez - Rich Folks Hoax Sixto Rodriguez - Sugar Man He's an unreal lyricist. His genre is acoustic/bluesy. There's a really good documentary on Netflix about him. He was born in America, and after his career going nowhere, he moved to South Africa where it took off and he became Elvis-status. Later on in his career, he went on stage and shot himself - well that's what people thought. I'll let you guys read a bit more into it. IMDB: Searching for Sugar Man (2012) - Rated 8.2 by 11,410 users.
Like b_b, I was fortunate enough to see him in a small dive a few years ago in Detroit. For added poetic effect, the opening scene from the documentary was essentially the same for me IRL...walking into a smokey dark room, and parting the crowd to see a figure with his back to me leaning over a guitar that I could barely hear over the noise of the bar. Correction though, -he never moved to South Africa. A copy of his records somehow made it down there through the Apartheid sanctions, and he blew up, basically becoming equal in stature to Elvis and the Beatles. Because of the isolation of the country at the time, they never knew that theirs was the only country in the world where he was that popular, and assumed he was a global superstar. Meanwhile, he was living in Detroit, doing demolition of old houses, with his music career over essentially. He ran for some local offices, got a philosophy degree at a local college, and just did manual labor. Then some journalist/fan from S. Africa tracked him down years later and brought him to the country, -a triumphant return, where he played sold out shows and tours. The revival never jumpstarted his fame or career back home though, -that happened with the movie. It's only really been in the last few years, in the twilight of his life, that things have been really taking off for him in the States. cgod on here originally turned me on to him a few years ago. I'd lived around Detroit for a decent portion of my life and never heard of him before that.