Sixto Rodriguez

Sixto Diaz Rodríguez (July 10, 1942 – August 8, 2023), mononymously known as Rodríguez, was an American musician from Detroit, Michigan. Though his career was initially met with little fanfare in the United States, he found success in South Africa, Australia (touring the country twice in his earlier career), and New Zealand. Unbeknownst to him for decades, his music grew extremely successful and influential in South Africa, where he is believed to have sold more records than Elvis Presley. Information about him was scarce, and it was incorrectly rumored there that he had died by suicide shortly after releasing his second album. In the 1990s, determined South African fans managed to find and contact Rodriguez, which led to an unexpected revival of his musical career. This was told in the 2012 Academy Award-winning documentary film Searching for Sugar Man and helped give Rodriguez a measure of fame in his home country. In May 2013, Rodriguez received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from his alma mater, Wayne State University, in Detroit. Rodriguez lived in Detroit's historic Woodbridge neighborhood, through which he is seen walking in Searching for Sugar Man. He lived a simple life, possessing no telephone, and occasionally visited bars in the Cass Corridor section of Detroit near Woodbridge and Midtown, such as the Old Miami pub, where he performed live concerts for small local crowds.