In the late 1990s, two South Africans set out to discover information about the legendary Rodriguez, an American folk singer who sold records in the hundreds of thousands during the apartheid era. Unlike most musicians of the 70s/80s where information was readily available, Rodriguez was barely known even by the local record label.
With extraordinary rumours circulating of Rodriguez having killed himself live on stage years earlier, Cape Town record shop owner Stephen ‘Sugar’ Segerman and music journalist Craig Bartholomew Strydom set out to find the truth. Their search reveals so much for Detroit-born Sixto Rodriguez, his family and record producers of the early albums that proved to be huge hits in South Africa.
In Searching for Sugar Man, director Malik Bendjelloul follows the standard documentary template of incorporating archival footage, interviews current and past along with its straightforward telling. And what a story as a man consigned to inexplicable obscurity following the release of two albums finds himself centre stage for the first time in his life.
Winner of the Oscar for best documentary in 2013.
Rating: 72%
An Opinion or Two 