Rodriguez Dies: Singer-Songwriter Profiled In ‘Searching For Sugar Man’ Documentary Was 81

deadline.com:

Sixto Diaz Rodriguez, the Detroit singer-songwriter better known simply as Rodriguez whose seeming disappearance after a brief flirtation with musical success in the early 1970s was the subject of the Oscar-winning 2012 documentary Searching For Sugar Man, died today.

He was 81. His death was announced on his official website. “It is with great sadness that we at Sugarman.org announce that Sixto Diaz Rodriguez has passed away earlier today,” the statement reads. “We extend our most heartfelt condolences to his daughters – Sandra, Eva and Regan – and to all his family.” A singer-songwriter heavily influenced by Bob Dylan and other 1960s-’70s confessional folk musicians, Rodriguez seemed poise for success, or at least a sustainable career in music, when his 1970 debut album Cold Fact was released on the Los Angeles indie label Sussex Records.

Already familiar in the Detroit area for his club and barroom performances, Rodriguez was hailed by some as the next Dylan. Although the Sussex label would soon score a major victory with the 1971 release of Bill Withers’ debut album Just As I Am, which included the massive hit “Ain’t No Sunshine,” Rodriguez’s critically hailed album failed to gain public traction.

A subsequent album, 1971’s Coming From Reality, met with the same fate, and Rodriguez seemed to vanish from the spotlight. But in what would become a central focus of the documentary, Rodriguez – unbeknownst to the singer himself – had found enduring popularity in Cape Town, South Africa, where his albums were so successful that he was considered a rival to Elvis Presley.