South African Fame
Besides the fact a Detroit Musician became an international superstar without being aware of it, it is even more shocking he blew up in South Africa! Stephen Seger-man dedicated his life to finding Rodriquez explained, “South Africa in the early 1970s was a very restrictive society…..Cold Fact was never banned, but it never received any radio play, except on pirate stations like Swazi Radio, which weren’t under the censor board. The song I Wonder had this line, ‘I wonder how many times you had sex’, which for South Africa in those days was about as controversial as it could get. For kids, it was like a joke song, they were like ‘listen to this!’. Then they heard the album, and realized there was a lot more in it, it was trippy, it was beautiful, it had a lot of social content. It affected a lot of people in a lot of different ways. The commercial success was unbelievable. If you took a family from South Africa, a normal, middle-class family, and looked through their record collection, you’d find Abbey Road, Neil Young’s Harvest and Cold Fact. It was a word-of-mouth success.”
South African Fame
Mystery Man
Other than his music, people around the world knew nothing about “Rodriguez.” They had no idea what he looked like, where he lived, or anything about his personal life. He was an international man of mystery!
Mystery Man
