Forty Years Later

I read an interesting story the other day about a man, a seventy-something year-old man, whose dreams – if you can call what he’s doing now his dreams from his youth – had come to pass. It may be trite, but as I read his story I thought about patience, and being humble and grateful, even when it appears there’s no logical reason to be either.

His name is Sixto Rodriguez. In 1970 recording executives thought they’d discovered the next Bob Dylan. Rodriguez sang songs with meaning and purpose. His tenor voice floated as he painted landscapes with his words. With expectations for commercial success virtually guaranteed, Rodriguez came out with his first album. It was lauded by critics. But, the listening public ignored it. Rodriguez’s first album was a recording failure.

Not ready to concede that they’d made a mistake, the recording execs sent Rodriguez back into the studio. Again he delivered a masterful, critically acclaimed album. And again, the listening public didn’t buy.

Rodriguez was cut loose. There were no more albums, no more studio work, no more anticipation that Dylan part two had arrived. He returned to his simple home in Detroit, an apt place for failed dreams, and began to live his life.

Life, as is the case more often than not, was not easy for Rodriguez. Detroit was dying and with it most jobs. He became a day laborer, working long hours at physical labor in less than ideal conditions. He somehow managed to raise three children and earn a college degree in philosophy. His music? It was still there. People would see a man walking around the decaying neighborhoods of Detroit. The man had a guitar on his back. “He looked almost like one of the homeless people meandering along the streets,” residents would remark.

Life isn’t easy. And years pass. And strange twists of fate occur. Rodriguez led his life the best he could. He struggled financially, but as he would say, “There’s no shame in being poor. There’s no shame in physical labor.” And half a world away, in the Republic of South Africa, the country was reeling under the strain of its Apartheid system. For young whites, many of them liberal and sympathetic to the plight of their nation’s black majority, Rodriguez’s music became their life blood. In South Africa, he was Elvis in almost any record store in any white shopping area you could be heard playing “I wonder,” or “Sugar Man,” or a dozen of his other tracks.

And then the rumors began rumors that Rodriguez had killed himself – self-immolation – in an artistic-political statement about the conditions of the world. A few fans wanted proof. They searched his song lyrics to find the place Rodriguez would call home and they found him alive and well in Michigan, and oblivious to his South African fame.

In 1998 Rodriguez flew to South Africa to perform a series of concerts. He was feted like the Beatles coming to America. He sang and took in the cheers of the crowd. When the tour was over he returned to Michigan. There was no renaissance interest in his music; there was no money for all the records he sold overseas. There was just the life he’d always lived.

 Things would have stayed that way if his path hadn’t crossed a young European film-maker who was looking for a story. It took years to make “Sugar Man.” The money to make the film ran out. The young film maker was on the brink of financial ruin. He submitted his still unfinished film to Sundance and a miracle happened. Rodriguez, it seemed, was the perfect story. Rodriguez, it seemed, was a voice for a time and a people. Forty years after he was first set to enter the music scene, Rodriguez was in demand.

Twists of fate. Luck. So many words are used when hindsight tries to grasp and make sense of the why. Why now, we ask? Why not back then.

There was a boy, seventeen, and in his dreams he did great things. His dreams angered his brothers who plotted his death. But for a simple twist of fate he was spared. And for thirteen years he survived servitude and imprisonment. He was wrongly accused, forgotten by those he helped, and left for dead by his family. And in another twist of fate, with a nation’s survival hanging in the balance, he was there to save a people from starvation. It’s the Genesis story of Joseph and it should remind us that no dream is ever completely gone. God’s ways are not our ways. And sometimes forty years have to pass before the dreams come to fruition. Was it too long to wait? Not by the smile on Rodriguez’s face or the joy in the hearts of people hearing him sing.