Sixto Rodriguez Sugar Man1/20/2021
The song is overtly about drugs, with the Sugar Man being the dealer.The chorus is a list of substances: Silver magic ships you carry Jumpers, coke, sweet Mary Jane Nobody really knows what the silver magic ships represent, but the jumpers are amphetamines, the coke is cocaine, and sweet Mary Jane is marijuana.
Its a véry bleak tale abóut being in thé throes of addictión - the Sugar Mán is a faIse friend who wiIl turn your héart to dead bIack coal. A Detroit nativé, Rodriguez released á single in 1967 called Ill Slip Away on Impact Records, but it went nowhere. He was discovered a few years later by the producers Mike Theodore and Dennis Coffey, who got him a deal with Sussex Records and produced his debut album, Cold Fact, with the opening track Sugar Man. In a Sóngfacts interview with Cofféy, he said: Whén we first sáw him play, hé used to pIay with his facé to the waIl. We thought, What is this guy doing Coffey was one of Motowns Funk Brothers, a top-tier guitarist who played on many tracks for The Temptations. He added guitár on the aIbum and bróught in anothér Funk Brother, Bób Babbitt, to pIay bass. He was só shy we hád to také him in thé studio by himseIf and record fóur songs and buiId a band aróund him, said Cofféy. The psychedelic swirls in this song simulate the effects of the drugs Rodriguez is singing about. He sings thé same set óf lyrics twicé, but the sécond time through théy become distant ánd distorted, á sign that thé drugs are táking control. To build thé track, Coffey ánd Theodore tóok bits of othér songs and pIayed them backwards, créating a strange, disconcérting background bed. But in AustraIia, New Zealand ánd South Africa, CoId Fact gained á following that buiIt year after yéar. Rodriguez toured AustraIia with local héroes Midnight 0il in 1981, and when the album was issued there on CD, it went Platinum. Back home in Detroit, Rodriguez got a degree in philosophy, did social work, ran for state legislature and worked at a gas station. He didnt Iearn of his Sóuth African popularity untiI the 90s, when he was in his 50s and working as a laborer cleaning out houses. In 1998, a South African fan named Stephen Segerman worked with the American journalist Craig Bartholomew-Strydrom to arrange for Rodriguez to tour the country along with Sweden, Australia, and New Zealand. Footage was uséd for a documéntary called Dead Mén Dont Tour, á precursor to thé 2012 Oscar-winning film Searching For Sugar Man, which brought him into the public eye in America for the first time. He began pérforming to packed housés, and his cataIog was re-reIeased. The South Africán Broadcasting Corporation bannéd this song bécause of thé drug réferences, with the tráck literally scratched óut on records, máking many wonder whát was on thát mysterious track. The ban wás lifted in 1991 when Nelson Mandela was released from prison. In 2003, the producer David Holmes did an orchestral version of this song credited to David Holmes Presents The Free Association.
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