Ear Candy
Ear Candy (August 6, 2008)
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Aug 5, 2008, 09:37

Out Cold


Rodriguez
Cold Fact
Light in the Attic Records

We all have skeletons swinging in our closets. Maybe it’s a scorned lover, a bad memory from youth or a cutting lie you've never cleared. Sixto Diaz Rodriguez's secret is that he just happened to create one of Detroit’s most infamous records — and never received fame for his deed. Hailed by all the right people a little too late, it seemed that the album might've slid away into oblivion. Thankfully, that’s no longer the case. This month, Light in the Attic Records reissues Rodriguez’s first and only album, Cold Fact.

The real fact is that in March 1970, post-album release, Rodriguez was gone. Vanished. Disappeared. Off the grid. Not to be found. That’s what people thought anyway. The truth is that after Cold Fact flopped and left the singer questioning what to do with his life, Rodriguez knew that it was time to settle down into a life of working for a living. After finding him working on a Detroit construction site in 1996, journalist Craig Bartholemew informed Rodriguez of the success of his album after leaving the music scene. With his record gone multi-platinum in South Africa, the singer returned to the spotlight by playing a successful tour through the southern part of the continent.

Starting off with the mesmerizing “Sugar Man,” Cold Fact shows that Rodriguez pulls no punches in working politics into his affluent poetry. The line in “The Establishment Blues” in which the singer says, “The mayor hides the crime rate / Council woman hesitates / Public gets irate but forget the vote date,” hits extremely close to home in modern-day Detroit. It’s sad and somewhat startling that the problems apparent in Rodriguez's now-vintage word play about the city in '69 still hold true in '08. More than 40 years later — politics, guns, drugs and domestic issues are still affecting the Motor City.

With production coming from Coffey and Theodore, along with instrumentation by a slew of Funk Brothers, Rodriguez’s songs are transformed from simple folk songs into musical juggernauts. “I Wonder” sounds like a slowed down Del Shannon tune mixed with a lazy Motown gem. “Only Good For Conversation” sounds like Sun Ra with a prog sounding guitar riff courtesy of Deep Purple. On “Jane S. Piddy,” Rodriguez takes Barry McGuire’s “Eve of Destruction” to another level of folk rockdom that Barry just never had the soul to do.   

In the end, Rodriguez’s Cold Fact is what it is, an underrated album that will go down in the annals of Detroit music history as an unfortunate flop. However, album sales have never meant anything in terms of cult status around the Motor City, just ask the MC5 and The Stooges. These artists were not well received upon arrival, but as we look back now, it’s apparent that their cultural impact reaches far beyond the numbers. The same can now be said for Rodriguez, as this reissue certifies the need for more knowledge about this little known Detroit legend. — ERIC ALLEN