Still Searching For Sugar Man: A Chat w/ Sixto Rodriguez

The phone rang a few times and a woman picked up. “Hello?” It was one of his daughters. I could recognize her tone and cadence from the now infamous documentary, Searching For Sugar Man. I didn’t have a chance to ask for her name before she passed the phone along to her father, Sixto Rodriguez, the famed songwriter and star of the film. With a sweet, patient voice, Rodriguez asked how I was doing, to tell him something about myself. In the moments before the call, nerves shook me, but now, I was having a conversation with the writer of the songs “I Wonder” and “Cold Fact.” Throughout the chat, I also got to ask him about how he learned to write music, what it was like playing those first big shows in South Africa, and what he thinks about first when he wakes up in the morning.