Please Sixto Rodriguez, avoid the Great American Songbook

Sixto Rodriguez loves SA and SA loves him. We went to his latest show and knew we were being just a little bit had. But we didn't care. Here is a guy whose music is iconic for a generation of South Africans and even some of their kids. In the 70s just about everyone I knew had a vinyl copy of Cold Fact, his best album. You heard it at parties, on lazy Sunday afternoons, wherever. In the Oscar-winning documentary, Searching for Sugar Man, which had many grown men crying, much was made of the 'anti-apartheid anthems' in his discography. This is poppycock. We just liked the music - his plangent voice, punchy lyrics, simple arrangements, catchy tunes. And in his concerts he still mostly pumps out those same songs. Unfortunately, his backing group was totally over the top. For starters, no less than two drummers with full kit and separate congas. Then a rhythm guitar with six and twelve strings, Rodriguez himself on rhythm and finally lead and bass guitars. It was hilarious at times. There were moments when the backing band lost the plot. For one song, a cover of 'Fever', Rodriguez strummed a few bars while the band stood nonplussed before the base player suddenly twigged, shouted it out and then they quickly chimed in. There were also a couple of songs out of the Great American Songbook, the kind of stuff that Rod Stewart and Robbie Williams have puked out when past their prime. Rodriguez did a version of 'I Only Have Eyes for You' which was written in 1934. It made me cringe, out of tune and out of character, appalling. Someone shouted from the crowd, "I love you, Rodriguez" and he shouted back, "I know it's the drinks but keep talkin' baby!" This is a stock line he delivers over and over round the world and it still gets a laugh. Anyway, this wiry construction worker deserves his place in our hearts. He's an American from Detroit but his parents came from Mexico. The QSL is from Radio XEG in Monterrey, Mexico, heard booming in one morning in 1991 in Morgan Bay, South Africa on AM 1050, a distance of more than 10000 miles.