Rodriguez
Born in Detroit in 1942, Sixto Diaz Rodriguez originated from a working-class background and dropped out of high school at the age of 16. Dividing his time between hanging around the university campus and playing assorted unconventional clubs and bars. Despite being a pacifist, Rodriguez contemplated signing up for the army at the height of the Vietnam War. "It was the spirit of the times," he says. "They have a war every 15 or 20 years, and there's always a crop of young-bloods who don't know this is happening. They've been inspired by the media. I love my country. It's just the government I don't trust." He didn't end up actually enlisting. "I had to fight my brother twice over that," he says. "Also, I just got married, and they didn't take people that were married at the time. His career initially proved short lived, with two little-sold albums in the early 1970s and some brief touring in Australia. Unbeknownst to him, however, his work became extremely successful and influential in South Africa and at one point in time more famous than Elvis Presley to South African fans, although he was mistakenly rumored in that country to have committed suicide. |
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