Searching For Sugar Man-
Malik Bendjelloul

This movie/documentary was recommended to me by my good friend Jeff, and I must say, it is one of the most surreal and outrageous stories that I have ever heard of.

Imagine an average person—blue collar to the core, living right off of Cass Corridor in a house he purchased for $50 in the heart of Detroit, walking around completely bereft of the knowledge that, for the better part of three decades, he is hailed as a borderline demigod in some far off country that he's never even stepped foot in.

A Twilight Zone biography of Bob Marley is the most apropos way of describing it.

But the fact that this was real life, makes it all the more bizarre.

***

It was a pretty pedestrian story from the outset.

Sixto Rodriguez (Sugar Man) makes a few records in the '70s that receive very little promotion and for his effort, he gets chichi beans back in royalties. He shelves his career and moves onto a modest life working in demolition and production line labor, getting involved in politics here and there to no success, and grows to become content to fade into irrelevance with the fact that he at least took a shot, walking away with a good understanding of how wretched and tough the music industry can be, but grateful to be wiser by default with an absence of bitterness in his step.

Meanwhile, in South Africa, several of his LPs from Sussex Records slip through the authoritarian parameters of apartheid and his voice resonates with a nation that is struggling to release itself from the oppressive grip of a sadistic government. The voice of an apparition becomes the anthem of a nation. Songs like "I Wonder", "Crucify Your Mind" & "Inner City Blues" sparked the rallying cry for a movement that would eventually turn the page on a despicable chapter in South Africa's history.

But, due to a lack of promotion from Sussex, the trail to Rodriguez continues to slam into one dead end after another, and fans in South Africa who wished to somehow pay their respects to a man whose words became synonymous with liberation are left to draw their own conclusions as to his fate.

*One eventual rumor was that he doused himself on stage with gasoline after a disappointing performance and went out in a blaze of glory.*

Needless to say, the dots eventually become connected and a magical reunion takes place soon thereafter.

I'm not a huge fan of "protest music" per se, but Rodriguez's jams were amazingly good, and I now have Crucify Your Mind & I Wonder on regular rotation.

I was sad to hear of Sixto's passing shortly before watching this documentary as, thanks to his proximity, I would have loved to have seen him once in concert.

One day you're living in a dilapidated house off Cass Corridor doing blue-collar work for pennies, the next you discover that you're bigger than Elvis.

Life's funny that way sometimes.

On a redundant side note, this documentary hit exceptionally close to home for me. Having attended well over 500 concerts in the course of my lifetime, and venturing into vast frontiers of wildly different genres of music, I have seen my fair share of artists that (while most of them were pretty forgetful) had left an impression upon me that I would never forget. With the magic of search engines, the mystery of where most who threw in the towel end up isn't too difficult to solve. But then there are a few that were so irrelevant to everyone else in the world (aside from me obviously) that they even managed to elude the internet. Bands like Superfund, The Down Boyz, Harms Way and the LSGH crew, Biblical Proof of UFOs, Powder P, Cage, Yakballz, Just Ice. The creek dries up pretty fast with a lot of them. I also find that I do this with bowlers I used to see at multiple houses who up and quit the game. It almost feels as if they drop off the face of the planet.

I used to think I was the only one who used to sit and say "I wonder?"

Now I know I'm not the only one.

Stars: ****

Verdict: Watch

Cousins: Walk The Line, The Wrestler, Cinderella Man, Coal Miner's Daughter, The Pianist