Talk:Sixto Rodriguez/Archive 1

Fact checking
I have temporarily removed an unsubstantiated comment about Rodriguez appearing on music industry insiders' top 100 lists. If you can give evidence, please do. --Slashme 06:53, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

External link suggestion: New interview feature with Rodriguez
As an editor at Crawdaddy!, and to comply with COI guidelines, I am not posting the link to this interview feature about Sixto Diaz Rodriguez. However, I would like to recommend it on its merits, and hope that an editor will find the time to examine the article and—if he or she sees fit—post it to the external links section. For the article, the writer interviewed Rodriguez and several of his associates about the unusual arc of his career. I appreciate your time. Crawdaddy! Mike harkin (talk) 22:36, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Germanized Pronunciation?
In the film, they had one of the South Afrikaners pronounce his name differently. It sounded a lot more like "Seesh-uh" than like "Seeks tuh." This appears to be because the South Afrikaners pronounce the 'x' as though it were tantamount to the digraph "ch" - - comparable to the Mexican 'x' character. 216.99.219.39 (talk) 05:37, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Amazing story
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50137686n Ottawahitech (talk) 07:13, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Release dates of Rodriguez albums in South Africa
The statement that both Rodriguez albums were released on cd for the first time in South Africa in 1996 is not correct. I have a Teal Trutone edition of Cold Fact released in April 1991. It was also available on vinyl in the 1980's, often sold together with Peter Sarstedt's Greatest Hits. The second album, Coming from Reality, probably only appeared on cd in 1996, and is known as After the fact in South Africa. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.88.21.195 (talk) 15:28, 16 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I had factory cassette tapes of Cold Fact and After the Fact in South Africa in the late 70s (circa 77-79). Rcbutcher (talk) 21:29, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Comprehensive List Of All Death Rumours in South Africa From 1972-1996
There should be a new section or its own page about all death rumours with the whole narratives... (1) Set himself on fire with the (2) Killed himself on stage... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.76.203.68 (talk) 23:09, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Haha. I think there have been so many urban myths circulating, that it would be an eight-headed bitch trying to find sources for them all, and despite, the section would likely violate at least a dozen of different Wikipedia guidelines, anyway. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:27, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Requested move
No consensus to move. --regentspark (comment) 18:40, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Sixto Rodriguez → Rodriguez (musician) – Artist almost exclusively known as Rodriguez on all his albums. See Searching for Sugar Man, Cold Fact, Coming from Reality. For better known artists with mononyms, it is preferable to use the mononym plus in parenthesis, an adequate parental description. For example Madonna (entertainer) (and not Madonna Ciccone), also Prince (musician), Sting (musician). I say the same applies to Rodriguez. All his creations are strictly credited to Rodriguez to the extent nobody knows him as Sixto and he doesn't use it himself werldwayd (talk) 06:43, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment. The press seems to know it. I would put this more in the category of Elvis than Madonna. But I actually have no preference on the move. Apteva (talk) 09:42, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Support. He is known in music as just Rodriguez, so convention for entertainers should be followed. Rcbutcher (talk) 10:05, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The relevant standard is whether or not the full name is "known and fairly often used," per WP:NCP. Update: The Telegraph gives this subject as "Sixto Rodriguez". Kauffner (talk) 10:57, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The Telegraph may be using his full name, but all Rodriguez recordings, old and new simply say Rodriguez and never Sixto Rodriguez. Cover for Cold Cut, Cover for Searching for Sugarman Cover of album Rodriguez Alive (1981) Cover of album Live fact Cover of Rodriguez At His best Citations of couple of articles does not negate the fact that he is almost exclusively known in all his artistic works as Rodriguez as a mononym. I am requesting change on basis of his output, not on some media report here or there werldwayd (talk) 03:19, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Support, as per werldwayd, or possibly move to Rodriguez (artist). 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:18, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose. As Apteva says, this is much more an "Elvis" case than a "Madonna" case. Per WP:NCP, Rodriguez' "first name is also known and used" in the media; it also serves as natural disambiguation which is preferable to a parenthetical.--Cúchullain t/ c 16:16, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Here we go again with the "Elvis" / "Madonna" cases... Frankly, it is very subjective and doubtful if Rodriguez is more an "Elvis" case... Are we talking Wikipedia naming technicalities or actual musical facts here? Are we relying on scanty media references to a "Sixto" or "the actual releases the artist has made" here? Are we taking into consideration experienced editors like us, or should we be concerned more with the general reader of Wikipedia who just knows him as Rodriguez nearly 95% of the time, if not 99% of the time without having ever heard the name Sixto? The so called "Sixto" Rodriguez (under which title we have his article) does not actually have EVEN ONE SINGLE RECORDING as so-called "Sixto" Rodriguez.... rather EACH AND EVERY SINGLE RECORDING he has EVER RELEASED (ever!) just says Rodriguez plain and clear from many decades to this day. All official charts that he has entered also say "Rodriguez". See for example the albums chart Sverigetopplistan in Sweden http://www.sverigetopplistan.se/ where this week he occupies positions 5, 21 and 22. So what is the use of calling him Sixto in the main article? See every single album cover that I mentioned with links in my earlier post (and I reiterate her) that all say "Rodriguez" Cover for Cold Cut, Cover for Searching for Sugarman Cover of album Rodriguez Alive (1981) Cover of album Live fact Cover of Rodriguez At His best . Very clearly, he is more a "Madonna" case than an "Elvis" case. He is also a "Sting case" and a "Prince case" than an "Elvis case". Like Madonna who never ever used Madonna Ciccone in her recordings, so did Rodriguez, never using Sixto Rodriguez in his. Elvis on the other hand, has many many recordings as Elvis Presley plus that in many of his films, he is credoted as Elvis Presley as well. In that sense, the artist Rodriguez is a "Madonna / Sting / Prince case" not an "Elvis case". werldwayd (talk) 11:52, 9 February 2013 (UTC) werldwayd (talk) 12:24, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
 * What appears on the album covers is less important than how the subject is referred to in independent reliable sources. As we've seen Rodriguez's first name appears regularly in sources about him. In this way he's similar to Elvis, who was credited as simply "Elvis" on nearly all of his albums, but his last name was widely known and reported. Additionally, natural disambiguation is preferable to a parenthetical, and Rodriguez' first name is well enough known to serve that additional purpose. As BDD says below, there are just too many Rodriguezes in music to make "(musician)" a good disambiguator.--Cúchullain t/ c 19:30, 9 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose per Cuchullain. See Rodríguez (surname). Rodriguez (musician) is just too ambiguous to be a good title—I could only support it if his first name were completely unknown, which it isn't. By contrast, I couldn't tell you the surnames of Adele or Madonna without looking them up. --BDD (talk) 18:02, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * In the seventies nobody knew his first name, he was just Rodriguez. Trust me, I was there. He has done music business as just Rodriguez all his life, and that is how his fans know him. That is how his concert advertisements read and that is the sign outside the venue. Today's media reports are written by people who only know him as a freak of public relations and marketing failure, not as an entertainer. Hence they know him as a private citizen (a poor laborer) more than as a famous entertainer. He is notable in history as an entertainer, not as a private citizen, and hence his trade name is relevant to Wikepedia. Rcbutcher (talk) 02:08, 10 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose as per Cuchullain. Tiggerjay (talk) 23:24, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Who was his wife?
Does anyone know who was the mother of his three daughters? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 105.228.210.200 (talk) 15:44, 23 May 2013 (UTC) Konny

Maybe a stupid question?
Why can´t I find something about Sixto Rodriguez on Wikipedia Afrikaans? If he is there since the 1970s famous, why is there nothing? --188.174.8.218 (talk) 18:34, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * There are many good topics that aren't covered in the Afrikaans Wikipedia. I knew the song Sugarman as an old song back when I was in university in the early 1990s, but I'm not sure when I first heard it. I know people who were actually at his South African concerts, so I'm quite comfortably convinced that the dude does exist.  It's cool that even after the rumors of his death have been put to rest, one can doubt his existence.  Sort of the opposite of "Elvis is alive" rumors. --Slashme (talk) 21:14, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Official website
What is the official website: On the Dutch wiki page 'http://www.rodriguez-music.com' is the official website and sugarman.org is referenced as a fan site. According the English wiki page the latest is the official site? One of them must be wrong? www.rodriguez-music.com looks more like an official site to me! 84.198.69.237 (talk) 00:14, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

How could he be unaware
[just saw the documentary, and this should be promoted into the main article that funds were paid to sussex records [cite the documentary]. and perhaps leave it at that. money paid but not recieved may be clear enough.] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.45.191.63 (talk) 06:54, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

of his popularity in South Africa? Didn't he get the income from the record sales? If not, what happened to it? Paul Magnussen (talk) 01:54, 10 October 2012 (UTC)


 * There was not this global interaction then which we now have through the internet. If you do not have friends in the country where your stuff is sold, you do not get to hear it. And even if you do get to hear it, you'd have to pay lawyers, and sometimes that money is not there when the company has dropped you. Our records were pirated in the Soviet Union and in Latin America and by the time we got to hear about it we were no longer represented by a company, did not have the money to pursue it. The other group members who were in the same boat could not contribute either, so we had to let it go as well. Most importantly you do not know precisely how many pirated copies were made, so you cannot assess what you may be owed. Only the perpetrator will know the figures, and he'd tell you that the costs exceed the outcome. You are also looking at two kinds of rights, performer's royalties, and author's royalties for music and lyrics. For the latter there may be better records in the copyright organisations, but only benefitting Rodriguez if he hadn't sold the publishing rights to .... whoever. 121.209.56.25 (talk) 05:20, 25 August 2014 (UTC)


 * The movie hints that the money never got to Rodriguez - that South African music publishers claim to have sent sales figures and royalty money to his known US agent but that somebody in the US pocketed it. Rcbutcher (talk) 22:05, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Surely this is fraud? Hasn't anybody raised the matter with any authority to have it investigated? 105.236.133.104 (talk) 06:24, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
 * As it appears in the documentary, Rodriguez is now getting old, has lived a physically hard life, doesn't seem very interested in money, and might not feel it would be worth the effort to pursue the matter further. When the question is hinted at in the documentary, the record label's old executive gets quite hostile. Afaik, Rodriguez is getting paid for current tours and royalties for the documentary soundtracks and current record re-releases, but seems to prefer giving away most of it to his family and friends. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:23, 15 January 2013 (UTC)


 * There's an excellent interview from The New Yorker, which includes this quote: "...that money does not go to Clarence Avant. It goes to another company in England...  a South African lawyer...said, “Sure, we can solve this, but it will take three years and we will need some money because these things are difficult.”"  This is seemingly corroborated in a New York Times article:  "Mr. Avant, 81, said he had seen the finished film and now regrets having been so flippant with a camera rolling. “I had nothing to do with where the money went,” he said.  “I don’t know who the South Africans were paying, and I don’t know who had my foreign rights.” "  --Sinister Stairs (talk) 14:33, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Germany
I find it a bit odd that i knew this guy 25 years ago, but I am from Germany not South Africa. I think i even got his original tape record. But yet the article and reports read like he was only known in South Africa. Thus, i suspect there might be some mention about him in the related German media from that time around the 80s. prokaryotes (talk)

Sorry if I'm not doing this correctly, but there's no 'reply' button on wikipedia. Anyway, I second what you've said, except that I'm from Australia. We've had his bootleg cassettes kicking around for 20+ years too. You can add New Zealand to that list also. Oh, we always knew him as "Jesus Rodriguez" though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.71.92.57 (talk) 10:42, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

One person's unsubstantiated claim is that, "This entire article (including this Talk section) refers to a fictional character"...
Literally 100% of the so-called "evidence" of Rodriguez's existence has been falsified.

I'm fully aware that there are over 40 articles about Rodriguez which can be found on the Internet (closer to 300, in fact, if you count articles that only reference these false articles). NONE OF IT HAS ANY BASIS IN REALITY -- IT IS ALL MADE UP. Do your research, people! The entire Oscar-award-winning documentary "Searching for Sugar Man" was falsified. If you don't believe me, then you should really learn how to scrutinize what you see.

This doc is equally as fictional as "This Is Spinal Tap" or "Meet The Rutles".

If you insist on believing what you see, then do yourself a favor, and ask how a previously unsigned artist could have recorded such a clean string section on his first album, and then ask how convenient was his 100% undocumented on-stage suicide.

Please watch this so-called "documentary" and then try to locate any shred of ACTUAL evidence of this person's existence, that does not scream "Blair Witch Project" right into your stupid face, Stupid. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.130.228.79 (talk) 13:44, 21 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Maybe you are right, but why are so aggressive against us? I did nothing wrong. I am thinking about "Exit through the Giftshop", a "dokumentary" with Thierry Guetta made by Banksy. Yes, it looks like its fake, all the Youtube videos from 2012, the photos from the 1970s shown in the film didn´t look old, the perfect sound, nothing on the afrikaans wikipedia... --188.174.8.218 (talk) 18:52, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Oh, how I wish you are right. Panera Bread restaurants in the U.S. are currently playing sets of ghastly folk songs and I've traced the lyrics of some back to this annoying, repeat-the-same-lyric-over-and-over wonder among them. His voice in the songs sound more like a James Taylor. Ear plugs don't keep him out. His voice doesn't fit his face. Is this guy an imposter? I see some possible circular referencing going on to make this all sound true. 5Q5 (talk) 14:20, 6 July 2013 (UTC)


 * This article goes back to 2006 so predates Searching for Sugar Man by several years. Here's an issue of Billboard from 1979 on his belated popularity in Australia, his album looks to have originally done poorly there too, which is something the documentary doesn't mention. (I just watched it and it gave me the impression he hadn't sang in nearly 30 years when he sang in 1998 or known of any overseas popularity) Maybe you distrust Google Books scanning, but if you can track down an April 7, 1979 issue of Billboard (then prove the Rodriguez article isn't in it) then I'll believe he's just fiction. If not than he's real because I feel 34-years is too long to manage a hoax like that. (I liked the songs in the documentary fairly well, but I think they are a tad too reverential. I could see them as feeling like a really depressing James Taylor or Jim Croce, which maybe the audience didn't want then. Or, I'd admit, didn't want from a Mexican-American as "depressing folk music" isn't really linked to Mexican-Americans for whatever reason. He seemed like a good guy though.)--T. Anthony (talk) 6:53, 24 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I really don't get first comment. The music is real, the person is real. Nobody is doubting these facts. Not even one reference is given to clarify these accusations. It feels like it's written by somebody who is very frustrated? I have no idea what the guidelines are for Wikipedia's Talk section, but would it not be better to totally remove irrelevant comments. Why is on the top! What means these '**'. It looks like it is really important? What would happen if I would wrote something about the weather of tomorrow down here. It would be removed right?? Maybe is the documentary is not 100 % accurate, but speaking about a fictional character!! Please! 84.198.69.237 (talk) 23:56, 3 November 2013 (UTC)


 * No. Only your slightly sad, slightly desperate bid for the '15 minutes of fame' that Warhol spoke of 'refers to a fictional character': yourself. In your somewhat pathetic attempts to stake your claim to fame you fail to make even the most elementary attempts to substantiate your sad, weak claims.  When you do try, e.g. referring to photographs 'looking old', you demonstrate your unfamiliarity with your chosen subject matter: researching the photography of many great masters from long before that era - e.g. Ansel Adams - might give you a better understanding of photography than you can obtain from many of the iPhone / SnapChat generation's familiarity with photography and photographic quality. As a mark of good will I have corrected your childish "shouty" capitalisation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.130.100.102 (talk) 23:30, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

I might add that the person asks "how can such a clean string section" be in Rodriquez' 1st album? Well, that is what record producers do. They assemble studio musicians for the artist they wish to record. The fellow writing this critique has no clue how records are produced. 72.173.169.25 (talk) 21:39, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

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