Applauding for Sugar Man

Anyone at the Ryman Auditorium May 13 who had not seen Searching for Sugar Man can considered it spoiled – the man is alive and mostly well.

Helped to the stage by his daughter (his eyesight is failing from glaucoma) and with an uneasy gait, Sixto Rodriguez immediately relaxed the audience with something that hasn’t aged a day – his singing voice.

Echoing through the Ryman, there was little difference between the up-and-comer from Detroit and the septuagenarian in leather pants. Nothing else in the set would suggest that Rodriguez has any reason to worry about his musical prowess.

Rodriguez mixed songs from his two vintage LPs, Cold Fact and Coming From Reality, with a handful of non-album tracks and choice covers. While he disappeared after those albums, embers of Rodriguez’s music turned into blazing popularity in Australia and South Africa, where his albums sometimes get credit for helping end apartheid (seriously, go watch Searching for Sugar Man – I’m tired of rehashing the entire plot).

For the nostalgia embedded in Rodriguez’s tunes, nothing about the show felt dated. His music has a timelessness quality, with an ability to spotlight those on society’s bottom rungs within a catchy melody.

A clear highlight was Sugar Man, during which Nancy impressed our whole row by quieting a group of people behind us doing their best to talk and giggle over the relatively soft music.

Rodriguez peppered a number of covers in tribute to Detroit and his own musical influences. He broke out Fever, the standard made famous by Peggy Lee, as well as Sea of Heartbreak (which I only knew from a more bombastic Johnny Cash version) and Like a Rolling Stone, the latter of which opened a two-song encore.

His show closer, a cover of American Songbook standards I’m Going to Live Till I Die, summed up Rodriguez in a few verses. He sounds like a man ready to play his songs until his time runs out. As well he should. 

Decades as a construction worker might have taken their toll on his sight and body, but he can still pick like nobody’s business, and his vocal purity remains stunningly impact 40 years after he faded from the American rock scene.