Rodriguez : A legend!

Like everyone we love a good story here at Slyde and we also love introducing people to new things also very few people may know of this story. This is a story bordering on legend that originated way back in the early 90's when I was at school possibly even further back I'm sure but this was when I first came about it.  If  you grew up in that era in South Africa it's more than likely that you will have heard of it or parts of it. again this doesn't have much directly to do with Bodysurfing or Handboarding but I used to listen to This guy on the way back from the beach in Durban all the time!  He has some of the great post surf session chilled out music you'll ever likely to hear.

The Music I'm referring to is Rodriguez and if you haven't heard of him check him out in the video or on you tube sugar-man is one of my favorite and has been redone from the likes of  local saffer band Just-jinga to  paolo ntini. Rodriguez was the voice of a generation in South Africa and as far as I am aware New Zealand and Australia too. He is one of the most underrated musicians of all time of course in my opinion make your own mind. It was with Cold Fact his first Album that the story begins it was release in the 70's and gained a huge cult following in all the previously mentioned Countries. It was around the this time that there were rumors that Rodriguez had died! I heard from some obviously uneducated sources that he had shot himself on stage, Done the whole Jim Morrison thing in a bath. all sorts of speculation ran rife. All though these rumors only helped Entrench Rodriguez as a cult hero among us. They were not  helped by the naming of what we thought where his last album "cold fact" followed by "after the fact".

Unbeknownst to Rodriguez, these went platinum in South Africa, Apparently his daughter had one day in the mid 90's seen a website dedicated to Her Father that he was a DEAD LEGEND. He had absolutely no Idea  a South African fan named Stephen Segerman, who ran a fan site at sugarman.org, tracked Rodriguez down. "They posted a 'missing' advert, like you'd see on the side of a milk carton, for me," Rodriguez says. "We set up a tour of South Africa, and I expected to see a bunch of disgruntled older people in the audience. But there were all these young faces, youngbloods. When I came out in Cape Town, they all rushed the stage."

I remember that tour as he sold out a 45.0000 stadium it was amazing and so is his music hope you enjoy and get to experience a little of what we did.