Monday, April 29, 2013

Searching For Sugarman

This is a documentary about a musician from the 1970's. His name was Jesus Rodriguez. He was discovered in Detroit by two producers there. They put out an album with him, but the album never went anywhere for some reason. The record label ended up dropping him after his second album dropped and didn't sell either.
Somehow, though, the first album made its way to South Africa just when the country was in transition due to apartheid. It became a cult album, and ended up selling half a million copies there, but no one knew anything about him. There were stories, though. One was that Rodriguez had lit himself on fire on stage; another was that he had shot himself on stage.
In the late 90's two men who had wondered all these years what had really happened decided to made a web site dedicated to finding out the true story.
What they end up finding out was amazing. I won't ruin the story here, but rest assured, if you invest the time it takes to watch this, you will come away with hope for humanity.
This documentary was directed by Malik Bendjelloul, and the two men at the heart of the search were Stephen "Sugar" Segerman, and Dennis Coffey. Thank goodness for amateur sleuths. Thank goodness for music with the power to heal.

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