Cool, like water, is difficult to grasp, and like truth, is even more awkward to explain. If an example of this conundrum were needed, then it could be located in the guise of Sixto Rodriguez, who by virtue of existing exemplifies the quality in question. At the age of three score and ten, he has become an unusual media darling. with appearances on the Letterman Show in the U.S. and Later with Jools Holland in the U.K., and is selling out venues (three nights in London, to mention but a few) and has gone from being a re-issue oddity to a current artist, -- without, it has to be said, much calculation on his own behalf. He is also the subject of a major documentary, Looking for Sugar Man, which embroiders his delicious myth into a rock 'n' roll fable. He remained steadfast, it was simply the world that moved closer.
His tale is unique because it could only have transpired when that world was smaller and woefully disconnected. It couldn't now evolve that one had achieved Beatles and Stones-like popularity in South Africa, and could remain accursedly ignorant of this fact, never to glean a cent or a rand from your acclaim. That the tall tale was told and re-told of his on-stage suicide, and hence his absence, and that a few die-hard fans sought to assemble a semblance of truth about their elusive idol, simply couldn't transpire in the age of ether. It couldn't happen now, but within living memory it did, and is therefore magical and shocking in equal measure.
Once the hat has adorned his long black hair, and the shades are in place, Rodriguez is dressed for business. He exudes an air of nonchalance, assurance, and poise, an effortless enigma, as this man in black launches into "Climb Up on My Music," the opening track from his second album, Coming from Reality, and the perfect invitation for the audience to savor his select but intoxicating canon of songs. That 90% of them weren't even a consideration in the grand scheme of things when his efforts first fell upon deaf ears makes the evening's proceedings even more remarkable. He was supposed to be the new Dylan, and for once with due cause, although the bitter-sour nature of his debut, Cold Fact, was perhaps too strong for mass consumption, and markedly at odds with his next development into a street-educated beatnik, a Leonard Cohen from the University of Life.
His poetic reflectiveness was stalled, and a third album aborted because of negligible sales, an outcome that is all the more alarming given the enthusiasm with which these songs are now greeted, forty years on. What follows is an inspired ramble through his past, presented as though they were minted only yesterday. It must be as satisfying as it is surprising to hear his once dusty words sung back to him by the audience. They holler in appreciation of an almost garage-like version "Sugar Man," and sway and applaud as he he guides them through moments of sublime bitterness and extreme pathos with "I Wonder," "The Establishment Blues,"and "I'll Slip Away."
After much applause, he once again appears and completes a magical evening with a rollicking version of "Blue Suede Shoes" and, without any hint of irony delivers a blistering take on "Like a Rolling Stone." The one-time pretender in the eyes of scribes is now laying the comparison to rest by owning it as he signs off. Imitation can be a sincere means of flattery, but in this case it simply reveals that we are in the presence of an equal to any of his formerly perceived peers. Rodriguez was never the new anybody; he was, and remains, uniquely himself. That it has taken four decades for this to transpire is as equal a rebuke as the reward it has become.