Rodriguez : Cold Fact :: (The Hispanic Bob Dylan)
To fully understand the story of Rodriguez, you really must read the detailed 36-page liner notes in the new re-issue of Cold Fact on Light In The Attic Records. (Sixto Diaz) Rodriguez was born in 1942 in Detroit, Michigan. His parents had immigrated to Michigan from Mexico just months earlier and grew up speaking Spanish in a working class family. Rodriguez entered school and began learning English so that he would fit in with the other kids, leaving Spanish for only his family members. His father played guitar and would sing heartbreaking songs that would leave the young Rodriguez in tears.
The raw emotion of music attracted him to his father’s guitar and soon he learned to play these songs. In high school the slight Rodriguez was not interested in sports so he would spend his money on music and movies. In 1965, the pop culture explosion hit Detroit as Motown was all over the charts and the city’s club scene was filled with skilled session musicians. Dennis Coffey was one such Motown session guitar player and Rodriguez enlisted him to produce his first single for Impact. “I’ll Slip Away” b/w “You’d Like To Admit It”. The 45 was credited to “Rod Riguez”. It was released in 1967 and flopped and after the release of a few more singles, Rod Riguez fell into the background.
As Detroit started forging new genres outside of “The Motown Sound”, groups like The Stooges, The Amboy Dukes and MC5 became more prevalent and there was renewed interest in recording again. Rodriguez’s time out of the music scene was spent writing new material that ended up on his first few albums. Rodriguez “ Cold Fact” was released in 1971 on Dennis Coffey’s Sussex label and was deleted seemingly within months.
I’ve read lots of reviews of this record over the years, and by most accounts this LP was standard issue in most cutout bins. This record was usually compared to Bob Dylan, Love’s Arthur Lee, Apple-era James Taylor and José Feliciano. Although the album failed to make him a star outside of his circle of friends in Detroit, Rodriquez became a sensation in places like South Africa and Australia where even today his status is on a Dylan or Beatles sized scale. In 2002, a UK DJ named David Holmes was shopping for records in New York City and came across Rodriguez “Cold Fact” and bought it remembering a friend mentioned it in passing. Holmes used the song “Sugar Man” (a song dedicated to a drug dealer) on his compilation “Come Get It, I Got It”. The song eventually became an underground sensation in US amongst crate diggers thirsting to hear more from the mysterious Rodriguez.
Fast-forward six years later and here it is…Light In The Attic Records (a personal fave) has done a lush job on this package. If you enter into this album thinking it’s a Bob Dylan knock off, let me tell you here, it’s got elements of garage/psych, produced orchestration, and lots of insightful folk. There’s something for everyone on this album and after you hear it you’ll see why South Africa and Australia hold Rodriguez in such high regard. This is the sort of material indie record shops thrive on. Next time you walk in to your local record cave, ask the hipster behind the counter if they’ve uncovered any hidden gems lately. Certainly this is in the running for top re-issue of 2008
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