Rodriguez

Cold Fact

Format: LP

Record Label: Light In The Attic

Condition: New (sealed)

* High quality reissue - remastered from the original tapes - 180 gram vinyl - tip-on style jacket - includes a foldout insert with photos and liner notes interviewing Rodriguez - recorded in 1969 - originally released in 1970
* It's one of the lost classics of the '60s, a psychedelic masterpiece drenched in color and inspired by life, love, poverty, rebellion, and, of course, "jumpers, coke, sweet mary jane". The album is Cold Fact, and what's more intriguing is that its maker - a shadowy figure known as Rodriguez - was, for many years, lost too. A decade ago, he was rediscovered working on a Detroit building site, unaware that his defining album had become not only a cult classic, but for the people of South Africa, a beacon of revolution. Sixto Diaz Rodriguez was born in 1942 to Mexican immigrant parents in Detroit, Michigan. He recorded Cold Fact - his debut album - in 1969, and released it in March 1970. It's crushingly good stuff, filled with tales of bad drugs, lost love, and itchy-footed songs about life in late '60s inner-city America. "Gun sales are soaring/Housewives find life boring/Divorce the only answer/Smoking causes cancer," says the Dylan-esque "Establishment Blues". But the album sank without trace, thanks, in part, to some of Rodriguez's more idiosyncratic behavior, like performing at an industry showcase with his back to the audience throughout. As his music career became a memory, Rodriguez's legend was growing on the other side of the world. In South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, Cold Fact had become a major word of mouth success, particularly among young people in the South African armed forces, who identified with its counter-cultural bent. But Rodriguez was an enigma - not even the label knew where to find him - and his demise became the subject of debate and conjecture. Some rumors said he'd died of a heroin overdose or burned to death on stage. Others said he had gone mental. But the tide began to turn in 1996, when journalist Craig Bartholemew set out to get to the bottom of the mystery. After many dead ends, he found Rodriguez alive, well, free and perfectly sane in Detroit. Rodriguez himself had no idea about his fame in South Africa (the album had gone multi-platinum), and embarked on a triumphant South African tour, filling 5,000 capacity venues across the country. Rodriguez was still largely unknown in the northern hemisphere until 2002, when "Sugar Man," the album's extraterrestrially wonderful lead track, was picked up by David Holmes.
* Track Listing: Sugar Man / Only Good For Conversation / Crucify Your Mind / This Is Not A Song, It's An Outburst: Or, The Establishment Blues / Hate Street Dialogue / Forget It / Inner City Blues / I Wonder / Like Janis / Gommorah (A Nursery Rhyme) / Rich Folks Hoax / Jane S. Piddy

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