Matthews salutes life of late local musician
Says Sixto Rodriguez sang about ‘overlooked people’
“He also made you want to fight for a better world . ... I love him.”
The socially progressive artist Sixto Rodriguez, who died Tuesday at 81, “sang up from the bottom,” Dave Matthews said Thursday in a warm tribute to the Detroit singersongwriter.
Few artists in recent years were bigger champions of Rodriguez than Matthews, the South Africa-raised musician who helms the Dave Matthews Band.
“Rodriguez sang about the beauty and power of the overlooked people that were all around him. They were the heroes of his songs. He sang about the city, the poor, the hustler and the hustled, the dealer and the addict,” Matthews said in a statement provided to the Detroit Free Press.
“He also made you want to fight for a better
Dave Matthews
On Sixto Rodriguez, who died Tuesday at 81
world. He sang up from the bottom. I love him.”
Rodriguez, a longtime Cass Corridor denizen, met with Matthews backstage in June 2022 at Pine Knob Music Theatre — where Matthews went on to perform an acoustic cover of the Detroit artist’s signature song, “Sugar Man.”
As a South Africa native who grew up in Johannesburg in the ’70s and ’80s, Matthews had a unique window into the work of Rodriguez.
While the Detroit artist and his power-to
the-people songs remained obscure in most parts of the world — including his hometown — they managed to capture the imagination of tuned-in music lovers in apartheid-era South Africa.
“He was as important to me as Bob Dylan, as Cat Stevens, as Marvin Gaye,” Matthews said onstage at Pine Knob last summer. “And all these people have never heard of him?”
The low-key Rodriguez was ultimately thrust onto the wider radar in 2012 via the Oscar-winning
documentary “Searching for Sugar Man.” The film chronicled the quest of South African fans to learn more about the enigmatic Detroit artist and his pair of albums from the early ’70s, which brimmed with street-smart protest songs.
“Sugar Man,” the leadoff track on Rodriguez’s debut album “Cold Fact,” became a feature of DMB sets in the 2010s.
Matthews fittingly unveiled his version of the song during three South African shows in late 2013 — his first concerts in his birth country.