Saw a terrific movie last week.  It was a documentary that won the Academy Award for best documentary (duh!) in 2013.

It’s About the Music

The movie “Searching for Sugar Man”  is about a folk musician/ singer songwriter named Rodriguez who released two albums in 1970 and 1972.   The story focuses on the fact the albums never sold in North America but were multi-platinum sellers in South Africa.  He was introduced to the South African market during the period of apartheid when the country was isolated under sanctions from the rest of the world.

For me, a bit of an aficionado of music from that time period, what blew me away was the quality of the music.  The lyrics and the melodies were extraordinary not just for one song but for every song on the movie soundtrack.  Why had I not heard this before now?

After watching the movie I acquired the two original albums – “Cold Fact” and “Coming from Reality” and was amazed to find the quality of the songs applied not only to the soundtrack but to every song on the albums.

What was missing?

The major question for me is what happened?  If I had been exposed to these albums on radio, record store or word of mouth I would have snapped them up, along I suspect with millions of others (like happened in South Africa).

I should note that although not  mentioned or explored in the movie Rodriguez albums sold five time platinum in Australia and he toured there in 1979,  The movie focused on the South African story mainly following the search by two South African fans in the early 1990’s for Rodriguez who was working construction in Detroit at the time.

Great movie, great music – recommended.