[Photo: Sixto Diaz Rodrigues, 2007, by Luke Winterton.]

By Rowan Wolf

I used to tell my students that we influence people all the time whether we are aware of it or not. I was referring to the reality that we are all avid people watchers from birth onwards. For better or worse we influence each other in a multitude of ways. We can reinforce the status quo or present unique ways of interacting in the world. We can reach out in kindness, or we can shoot another down. We can be the last straw in a person’s life, or the lifeline that helps someone back from the edge. The reality is that we may never know the lives we’ve touched not the impacts of that touch.

This brings me to one of the wildest examples of this that I have ever heard of. It is the story of a blue-collar man who was a singer and songwriter with dreams of his music making a difference in the world. His name was Sixto Diaz Rodriguez and he recently died at the age of 82.

Rodrigues was writing and performing during the late 1960s through the 70s. Like millions of musicians, he just never made it in the U.S. music game, and I can’t help but think that a big piece of that was his Mexican heritage. However, unbeknownst to him, he was a huge hit in South Africa, and his music was a critical background to the anti-apartheid movement. He did not find this out until long after he had left music and settled into making a living. An award-winning documentary “Finding Sugar Man”* details his story and brought him back for American audiences.

Sixto Rodriguez, the folk musician who worked in construction in Detroit completely unaware that he was huge star in South Africa, has died at age 81. His death was announced on the Sugarman.org website and confirmed by his granddaughter, Amanda Kennedy. His wife, Konny Rodriguez, said he died following a short illness. While his music flopped in the U.S. during the 1970s, his protest songs struck a chord in apartheid-era South Africa where he was considered as popular as The Beatles or the Rolling Stones. South African fans heard mixed reports about what happened to Rodriguez after his rise to fame, with many believing he had died. That was until Stephen Segerman and journalist Carl Bartholomew-Strydom set out to discover the truth and found Rodriguez working a blue-collar job in Detroit oblivious to the fact he had millions of fans on the other side of the world. His story, and the mission to find him, was immortalized in the documentary Searching for Sugar Man, which won an Academy Award in 2013, and introduced the singer to a much wider audience. (The Daily Beast, 8/9/2023)

Sixto Rodriguez was compared to writing like Dylan and singing like James Taylor, but his music never took off here. He tried to put his voice into the world and he thought he had failed. He put his guitar away and quit writing to make his living in construction. He had no idea that his music was touching so many in a critical struggle in South Africa.

So as you go about your day-to-day life do not become complacent in your actions in the world and the energy you put out into the world. You do not need to be “famous” to make amazing contributions. In fact, the point is not, and should not be fame. Rather, it is in our hands to use our energy positively or negatively; to lift others up or to put them down.

The following video is a full concert by Sixto live at Ancienne Belgique in April 2014.

* “Searching for Sugar Man can be streamed on MAX for those with subscriptions, and those who have Amazon Prime can also watch the documentary for a small fee of $3.99. Unfortunately, it is not available on Netflix.

You can also rent the movie on streaming services like YouTube and the iTunes store, making it relatively accessible to watch this award-winning doc from anywhere in the world.” (YahooLife!)

Rowan Wolf, PhD

I am a sociologist, writer and activist with life long engagement in social justice, peace, environmental, and animal rights movements. My research and writing include issues of imperialism, oppression, global capitalism, peak resources, global warming, and environmental degradation. I taught sociology for twenty-two years, was a member of the City of Portland’s Peak Oil Task Force, and maintain my own site Uncommon Thought Journal. I may be reached by email at [email protected]. On a personal note, I am also a survivor of pulmonary hypertension by the gift of a donor’s lungs in 2011. I do my best to honor that gift by trying to be my best self and give to the world what small gifts I have. Among those is a deep passion for life, and the lives of all those with whom I share the planet.