Rodriguez, the Detroit Mexican-American singer, who is focus of the recently released documentary "Searching for Sugar Man," has become the darling in the music world these days.
But apparently his act could use a little smoothing out, according to a review in the Los Angeles Times, which noted that his career was rescued from near obscurity in the states with the release of the acclaimed documentary.
Rodriguez, whose full name is Sixto Diaz Rodriguez, sold old Friday night at the El Rey Theater on Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles. The crowd greeted him with a wildly welcoming roar, the LA Times noted.
Ernest Hardy wrote in the paper:
His fragility was startling, but also served to further endear him to folks already nestled in the palm of his hand. But he stopped the night’s first song “You’d Like to Admit It” just a few bars in to quietly tune his guitar as the band and audience waited. It was a false start that set the pace for the rest of the evening.
The muddy sound mix often swallowed Rodriguez’s vocals and guitar beneath the too-loud backing band (San Francisco’s the Fresh & Onlys, talented but ill-served by El Rey’s sound system). And momentum never built as almost every song’s ending was followed by a stretch of time to allow Rodriguez to tune his guitar and fiddle with the sound.
Still, there were moments that were exhilarating. The fifth number of the night, the crisply penned “I Wonder” was a crowd favorite and received prominent placement in the film and it was in this number that the singer found a strong, captivating voice. “I wonder how many times you’ve been had / And I wonder how many plans have gone bad / I wonder how many times you’ve had sex,” he crooned, and then wryly quipped at the song’s end, “I wonder, but I don’t really wanna know.”
Later, he writes:
Unfortunately, the air was sucked out of the room by an ill-advised medley of rock 'n' roll classics (“Blue Suede Shoes,” “Good Golly Miss Molly,” and “Shake, Rattle & Roll” among them) that was indulgent and seemed ill-rehearsed.
Hardy noted the pressure Rodriguez finds himself in, describing him as " almost preternaturally humble – beguilingly so" and saying he "has been turned into something of a shaman figure by his most devoted followers, and it’s an unfair, cumbersome projection for him to carry."
