Review: Sugarman – The Rodriguez Story at Astor Theatre

Sugarman – The Rodriguez Story at Astor Theatre
Wednesday, October 4, 2023

The Astor has cornered the market in tribute shows. Barely a week goes by without an ensemble of highly-accomplished musicians performing the greatest hits of another legendary band, be it Abba, The Bee Gees, The Doors, whoever. And fair enough too. There is a strong market for this. Everyone loves to hear their favourite songs played live by a kick arse band. Besides, as most of these legendary bands long ago quit the stage, whether through mortality, artistic differences or simply to retreat into their chateaux in the south of France, this is the closest most of us will ever get to having that exquisite concert thrill.

But there’s a catch.

Afterwards, people don’t rush home to download a recording of the show. They may be tempted to stream the original songs or, if they’re really moved and still so inclined, hunt down a remastered copy of the original albums, but they won’t be searching through the cover band’s back catalogue.

Although it was an excellent show, few of last Thursday night’s moderate house at Sugarman –The Rodriquez Story were there to see Howie Morgan, his kick arse band or the Dolce String Ensemble, who occasionally accompanied them. They were there to hear Rodriguez, and they got their money’s worth. They saw a superb carbon copy performance of some twenty of his greatest songs, from Sugarman, I Wonder and Climb Up On My Music to his reincarnated cover of Jose Feliciano’s version of The Door’s Light My Fire. 

Great stuff. As professional musicians, the ensemble did a fine job, they nailed the songs and delivered them with such force the room sometimes shook. Howie has a strong voice that he kept pretty close in intonation, feel and accent to Rodriquez’s. The only deviation in his performance was that, whereas Rodriquez played a steel string guitar, Howie plays a nylon. He knew how to play it though, very well.

The screen show that accompanied it was great. A collage of black and white European movies from the sixties that more or less fit the tone of the songs played along with the odd clip or still of Rodriguez.

Howie gets points for opening the second set with his original Protest Songs, inspired by Rodriguez and loosely conforming to his formula. There weren't any standout hits, but it was enjoyable enough. He also gets a point for telling a small part of the fascinating Rodriguez story. But then anyone who has seen the movie Searching for Sugarman already knew everything he had to say. Herein lies the problem.

Howie mentioned at least three times that, although he never cracked it in the States, Rodriguez had a big following in Howie’s homeland of New Zealand as well as here in Australia and in South Africa. But then, like the film, he only talked about South Africa. Given that the show was developed and put on in Perth, surely it would have been appropriate to reflect on the reason why Rodriguez was so big here or to consider the impact his music had on audience’s in Australia. 

Almost everyone with any musical sense in Perth in the 70s, including maybe half the elderly audience at the Astor, knew Rodriguez’s music first-hand. If they didn’t own one or both of his albums, many of their friends did and played them almost to death. This felt like a relevant story that Howie’s show failed to address.

The answer is intriguing.

Perth, like most Australian cities, possibly more so, is musically highly-sophisticated – certainly when compared to middle America. Many artists, most famously Talking Heads, B52s and Suzanne Vega, were big in New York, Los Angeles and Perth way before they took off in middle America, and from there the rest of the world. Why else would Rodriguez come out of retirement a good five years after he was dumped by his label to tour Australia and New Zealand? As far as he knew, we were his only audience.

In Perth’s case, the reason for this is again intriguing. At that time, the city had three of the best import record stores in the country: 78s, Dadas and White Ryder. (Later, in Freo, Mills Records took up the mantle.) Many an international artist, after checking into their hotel, would hot-foot it to Hay Street to pay their respects to 78s. They knew where their audience were coming from. These shops introduced music to this city that shaped our musical sensibilities. Arguably, one of the reasons it was so hard for Perth bands to get a foothold in those years was that the local audiences were too tuned-in to the international scene. A Perth band had to be absolutely sensational to compete with what everyone was listening to on their turntables and car cassette players.

But back to Rodriquez.

Much is made of the tragedy that, although he had a huge following in South Africa and became the voice of the Apartheid protest movement, he didn’t know about it and, worse, didn’t get a penny from it. His albums there were bootleg copies, royalty-free. Had he received payment, his record company may have kept him on. Instead, after two albums they dumped him, then went out of business a few years later. The Australian and New Zealand markets that did pay royalties were not enough.

Rodriguez is sometimes compared to Bob Dylan. True, he was a master of poetic portraits and cutting insight into the downtrodden and miserable he encountered on the streets, in the bars and at his shows. He had a way with words that resonates still. But he could only be compared to Dylan if Dylan had never left his hometown of Duluth, Minnesota. 

The artist whom Rodriquez most resembled was the legendary and alas lost English folk singer Nick Drake. Island Records dumped Drake after three brilliant albums that also didn’t sell. Tragically, a few years later, Drake took his own life. His albums still sell and he is more famous now than he ever was when alive – not ghoulishly from dying so young, but because his music was so damn good.

The problem for Rodriquez was that he remained in Detroit and was signed by a minor local label. Although Detroit in the 60s and 70s was a musical powerhouse, it was only for one kind of music, Motown. For all its brilliance, massive influence and plethora of legendary black artists, until Marvin Gaye’s seminal What’s Going On, Motown was not a label for protest songs. Owner/producer Berry Gordy had to be dragged kicking and screaming to release that Marvin Gaye masterpiece – as far as he was concerned, music was all about catchy melodies and funky rhythms people could dance to. The lyrics were mere accompaniment that anyone had to be able to understand even if they only heard a third of the words. 

Rodriguez could deliver funky rhythms and catchy melodies but his words were way too deep and poetic for Motown. There were only two places in America at that time for his music: New York and maybe San Francisco. If, like Dylan, Cohen and every other acoustic songwriter of any substance, he’d moved to New York, maybe, just maybe, he would have become the star his talent deserved.

And this leads onto the real tragedy of Rodriguez: all the songs he didn’t write, all the brilliant albums he didn’t put out. It is immensely gratifying that he ultimately gained the recognition his early albums deserved, but this rediscovery did not lead to an outpouring of new, relevant material. Instead he saw out his final years playing the songs he’d written in his youth. That is the true tragedy and our immense loss: a great voice stilled.

IAN LILBURNE

Photos by Linda Dunjey