Bido Lito!

Harvest Sun Promotions present

SIXTO RODRIGUEZ - Live

22nd November 2012

Liverpool Philharmonic Hall

Doors 8pm

Advance tickets from £20 available here

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Sixto Rodriguez is definitely not dead; instead, he's coming to Liverpool for a very special one-off appearance. This news may surprise some fans - the Searching For Sugar Man documentary which was released in 2012 followed two of Sixto Rodriguez's dedicated fans as they attempted to establish whether the poetic singer-songwriter was still alive, following rumours of a heroin overdose and a suicide involving setting himself on fire.

Rodriguez's story is one of adversity and, eventually, some very deserved good fortune. In 1970 and 1971 the US-born singer-songwriter released his first two albums, but was then dropped from his label after disappointing album sales. The quality of Rodriguez's impassioned songs somehow persisted, though, and he became a cult hit in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Zimbabwe, totally unbenknownst to him. Copies of his album eventually sold out, as his liberal political protest infused psych folk became a permanent fixture in apartheid era South Africa. Meanwhile, Rodriguez was back in the USA, working as a demolition man on a construction site and earning a degree in Philosophy. Eventually, his stature in South Africa was discovered by his daughter in 1998 who ran across a fan page dedicated to him on the internet, and it unravelled that his debut album, Cold Fact, had gone platinum in South Africa. Speaking of this in August's edition of Clash Magazine, Rodriguez remarked “I didn’t believe any part of it. I didn’t believe anything was happening there at all. How could I?”

As his cult status became clear, though, Rodriguez began to tour again, and after the renewed interest in this legend of a man as a result of the release of the Searching For Sugar Man documentary, it is with great pleasure that we can confirm that he will be visiting Liverpool for quite possibly the first time to play the city's Philharmonic Hall on 22nd November. Searching For Sugar Man will also be screened at the Philharmonic on the 5th September.