Due to his musical tastes and mispronunciations of his name, Cape Town record store owner Stephen Segerman has been nick-named “Sugar Man” since his army days. As any anti-apartheid white South African coming of age in the 1970’s knew, “Sugar Man” was one of Rodriguez’s greatest “hits.”
Though he never sold in America, it seems the visiting daughter of naturalized South African Americans brought a copy of his debut album Cold Fact with her and it just caught on, or so the legend goes. First bootleg copies circulated, but eventually legitimate South African labels started licensing it from future Motown honcho Clarence Avant’s Sussex Records. The money part of the story remains hazy (Bendjelloul lets Avant off rather easy in their on-camera interview), but none of it ever made its way to Rodriguez.
With no biographical information on his record sleeves, Rodriguez became a man of mystery to his hundreds of thousands of South African fans. Wild legends sprang up regarding his spectacular demise. However, the truth is worth staying for.
Sugar is a really well put together documentary. Camilla Skagerstrom’s cinematography vividly conveys the spirit of Rodriguez’s native Detroit and the Cape Town of his number one fan, as do the seamlessly integrated animated passages. Nonetheless, it is Rodriguez’s songs that truly give the film such a distinctive character. Extremely soulful and lushly orchestrated (nobody can fault Sussex for their production quality), they speak for themselves.
