Cold Fact

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Cold Fact
Rodriguez's studio album

Publication
(s)

March 1970

Label (s) Sussex Records

Format (s)

LP, CD

Genre (s)

Rock , soul , blues , folk

Title (number)

12

running time

32:23

occupation
  • Keyboards, wind instruments and strings arrangement: Mike Theodore
  • Drums: Andrew Smith
  • Strings: Detroit Symphony with conductor Gordon Staples
  • Hornblowers: Carl Reatz

production

Mike Theodore and Dennis Coffey

Studio (s)

Tera-Shirma Studio, Detroit

chronology
- Cold Fact Coming from Reality
(1971)

Cold Fact is the debut album by American folk singer Rodriguez . It was released by Sussex Records in March 1970 and became a long-running hit in South Africa. It was rediscovered in 2013 by the documentary Searching for Sugar Man .

History of origin

Cold Fact is the debut album of the folk - singer-songwriter Sixto Díaz Rodríguez, who became known as Rodriguez and who wrote the songs himself. First signed by Harry Balk to Impact Records , after the bankruptcy of the label in 1970, on the advice of Dennis Coffey and Mike Theodore, he switched to Clarence Avant's newly founded label Sussex Records. Avant was particularly impressed by the 27-year-old songwriter's lyrics, which thematized life on Detroit's streets and dealt with drug dealers and prostitutes. Rodriguez had already made a name for himself in Detroit and performed more and more in more obscure places. Cold Fact's first songs were recorded in a small gay bar called The In-Between and in a dive bar called The Sewer by the Sea . The album was made between August and September 1969 in the Tera-Shirma Studio, Detroit. The producers were Dennis Coffey and Mike Theodore, supported by sound engineer Milan Bogdan. The guest musicians, who were not named on the first publication, consisted of the crème de la crème of the Motown scene at the time. The Funk Brothers were involved in the recording and Theodore and Coffey were no strangers either.

Rodriguez was very insecure in the studio and didn't want to record with a backing band. He also didn't like overdubbing , which he found inappropriate to his style of making music. Rodriguez had only written ten songs for the album, but Coffey and Theodore insisted on two more songs to complete the album. They hired Gary Harvey, a professional songwriter, who wrote the two songs Hate Street Dialogue and Gomorrah (A Nursery Rhyme) for Rodriguez with Coffey and Theodore . The three tried to adopt Rodriguez's typical style. Rodriguez, however, felt misunderstood and tensions arose among those involved. The songs were recorded anyway.

The mix finally took place in the RCA studios. The sound engineer in charge was Roy Hall. Theodore and Coffey didn't trust the previous mix in the Detroit studio, as there was often trickery on site and the recordings later sounded worse. The high budget that Sussex had given them enabled them to mix a few more recordings. The release of the album was also delayed by contract difficulties. After the bankruptcy of Impact Records, Harry Balk had switched to Motown Records , which in turn claimed that all of Balk's rights had been transferred to them. Since Balk Rodriguez had probably signed a seven-year contract, Rodriguez feared for his album. Therefore he founded a corporation with his brother Jesus Rodriguez and had him registered as a songwriter. In order to disguise his own credits, the credits were simply left out in the booklet and on the record sleeve for all songs except those written by Harvey, Coffey and Theodore.

The album was finally released in March 1970 with the catalog number SXBS7000 on Sussex Records and received mostly positive reviews, including in Billboard magazine , but suffered from poor promotion.

Cover

The album cover was problematic. Theodore and Coffey hired the professional studio Ransier and Anderson. They sent their photographer Bob Flath. Originally a live performance of Rodriguez at The Sewer was supposed to be photographed, but the organizers did not allow the photographer to interrupt the set. The only shots that were taken during the performance were not suitable. Since a motorcycle gang was present at the performance , they experimented with Rodriguez on one of the motorcycles, but these recordings were not particularly successful either. Finally, Flath picked up some sort of crystal ball. To do this, he took a paperweight in the shape of a snow globe and photographed it with an echochrome effect. Then he took Rodriguez in the cross-legged on and erected the two images together. There were also some black and white photos from Detroit. The texts were printed on the back cover.

Music genre

Musically, Rodrigez moves in the direction of Bob Dylan , James Taylor and Nick Drake on the album . Leonard Cohen and The Rolling Stones came from his influences . His texts are based on observations of human behavior in and around Detroit. Another trademark was his political texts, which attacked the establishment and dealt with the hard life in Detroit and the daily handling of racism and hatred. In South Africa, where he was often compared to Jimi Hendrix , it was precisely these texts that exerted their charm during the apartheid period .

Track list

  1. Sugar Man - 3:45
  2. Only Good for Conversation - 2:25
  3. Crucify Your Mind - 2:30
  4. This Is Not a Song, It's an Outburst: Or, the Establishment Blues - 2:05
  5. Hate Street Dialogue - 2:30
  6. Forget It - 1:50
  7. Inner City Blues - 3:23
  8. I Wonder - 2:30
  9. Like Janis - 2:32
  10. Gommorah (A Nursery Rhyme) - 2:20
  11. Rich Folks Hoax - 3:05
  12. Jane S. Piddy - 2:54

Singles

The only single Inner City Blues with B-side Forget It appeared as SUX 204 and flopped too.

In 2002, SA Rock Digest Issue # 149 published a 7 '' supplement to the song Sugar Man, limited to 500 copies . On the second page is Muddy Waters with Tom Cat . The version is identical to that of David Holmes mix album.

success

Despite good reviews, Sussex Records failed to adequately promote the album. The album was only played on WABX in Detroit, but not on the underground stations in the rest of the United States that played similar music and where Rodriguez would likely have found an audience. In addition, the record company failed to recruit interviews. On a promotional trip to Los Angeles, Rodriguez stood in his own way. So he performed at Ash Grove and brought a man from the Brown Berets on stage who talked about how the police kill people in prisons. Hollywood Reporter then wrote a bad review.

The album was unsuccessful at the time of release, especially in the USA, and found no audience. A short time later, Rodriguez recorded his second album Coming from Reality , which was also unsuccessful. Rodriguez then ended his career.

Without knowing the interpreter, Cold Fact developed into an international long seller over time and received platinum in Australia and South Africa. In 1976, some copies of the album were discovered in a warehouse in New York and sent to Australia. There the album reached # 23 in the Australian charts in 1978 and stayed there for a full 55 weeks. In 1979 his two albums were released as a rerelease. Rodriguez then appeared in Australia in 1979 and repeated this in 1981, but then devoted himself to his professional life again. In 1981 he played with the then unknown band Midnight Oil .

In contrast, the album's great success in South Africa went unnoticed. The album was first released there in 1971 through A&M , which had the rights to Sussex in South Africa. Apartheid was prevalent there in the 1970s, South Africa was a police state. However, there was a lively underground scene where Rodriguez found its diffusion. Although it was not played on state radio or on numerous pirate radio stations, its music was spread via word of mouth. Then sold cold fact exceptionally well in South Africa, while his second album Coming from Reality there in 1976 as After the Fact was marketed, but had far less success. Many people in the army listened to Rodriguez on tapes they had recorded themselves. Rodriguez rose there to a kind of guru, roughly comparable to Jimi Hendrix or The Beatles in the western world. The first CD releases were also produced in South Africa. On March 9, 1998, the album finally went platinum. It had sold 50,000 times there. Since no new albums were released after 1976, legends grew up around the musician. It was only through the website "The Great Rodriguez Hunt" that Rodriguez could be tracked down and he first became aware of his fame in South Africa.

His songs like Establishment Blues were considered anti- apartheid anthems and were played on South African radio. In 2001 rapper Nas used a sample from Sugar Man for You're Da Man on his album Stillmatic . Large Professor cut the sample so that it became You're the Man . Also used David Holmes song for his mix compilation Come Get It, I Got It . In 2009, the documentary appeared Searching for Sugar Man , which in 2012 an Oscar for Best Documentary was awarded. In 2008, while filming, Cold Fact was reissued. In the course of the rediscovery, the album reached number 4 in Denmark in 2013 and number 11 in Australia. There it also reached number 19 in the 2013 annual charts. In Switzerland, the album reached number 20.

year title Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements
(Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) 		Remarks
DE DE AT AT CH CH UK UK US USTemplate: chart table / maintenance / charts non-existent
1970 Cold Fact - - CH20 (1 week)
CH 		UK39 (2 weeks)
UK 		US78 (18 weeks)
US
First published: March 1970

gray hatching : no chart data available for this year

Rereleases

A list of the various publications:

As LP

  • 1971: A&M [AMLS 67000] (South Africa)
  • 1974: United Artists [SXBS 7000] (South Africa)
  • 1978: Blue Goose Music [BGM 002] (Australia)
  • 1978: Interfusion [L34226] (New Zealand)
  • 1991: Teal Trutone [KVL 5109] (South Africa)
  • 2008: Light In The Attic [LITA036] (Remastered) (United States)

As a cassette

  • 1973: A&M [CXBS 7000] (South Africa)
  • 1991: Teal Trutone [KVC 5109] (South Africa)
  • 1990s; Teal Trutone [MMTC 1846] (South Africa)

CD

  • 1986: BMG Arista [BGM 002] (Australia)
  • 1980s: RPM [ICSXBS7000] (South Africa)
  • 1991: Teal Trutone [200 014-2] (South Africa)
  • 1993: RCA Victor [VPCD 6745] (Australia)
  • 1990s: Teal Trutone [MMTCD 1846] (South Africa)
  • 2002: PT Music [CDA DTA 7000] (South Africa)
  • 2005: PT Music [CDA DTA 7000] (Remastered Version, South Africa)
  • 2008: Light In The Attic [LITA036] (Remastered Version, United States)
  • 2012: Sony [CDSM552] (South Africa)

Cover versions

In 2003 The Free Association (David Holmes, Northern Irish DJ / producer) covered the song "Sugar Man" (original, radio edit, 2 mixes).

In 2015 a remix or a cover version of Hate Street Dialogue was released, which was published by the French deep house producer Tristan Casara under the artist name The Avener feat. Rodriguez was re-edited. This reached number 82 in the German , number 41 in the Swiss and number 101 in the French charts.

year Title
album 		Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements
(Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes) 		Remarks
DE DE CH CH FR FR
2015 The Avener feat. Rodriguez: Hate Street Dialogue
The Wanderings of the Avener 		DE82 (3 weeks)
DE 		CH41 (3 weeks)
CH 		FR101 (13 weeks)
FR

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Kevin Howes: Drop Out, Drop In: Rodriguez and His Music . In: Cold Fact Rerelease 2008 . Sussex / Light in the Attic, 2008.
  2. ↑ a b c Rodriguez at Allmusic (English). Retrieved November 17, 2016.
  3. ↑ Manohla Dargis: Rock Musician Shrouded in Mystery of What Might Have Been. New York Times , July 26, 2012, accessed November 17, 2016 .
  4. ↑ NEW SUGAR MAN 7 "SINGLE RELEASE. Official website, accessed November 20, 2016 .
  5. ↑ ARIA Charts - Accreditations - 2015 Albums. ARIA.com.au, accessed November 20, 2016 .
  6. ↑ Justin Timberlake returns to the ARIA Album Chart with a number one debut! ARIA.com, March 25, 2013, accessed November 20, 2016 .
  7. ^ The Great Rodriguez Website (archived version). Official website, accessed November 19, 2016 .
  8. ↑ Stephen Segerman (with Farell Russak): Rodriguez: The South African Story . In: Cold Fact Rerelease 2008 . Sussex / Light in the Attic, 2008.
  9. ↑ Placement in the charts at danishcharts.com
  10. ↑ Christoph Dallach: Folk-Pop-Legend: Rodriguez Dead heroes live longer. Spiegel Online , October 16, 2012, accessed November 17, 2016 .
  11. ↑ Chart data for Cold Fact. Austrian-charts.com, accessed on November 20, 2016 .
  12. ↑ ARIA Charts - End Of Year Charts - Top 50 Catalog Albums 2013. ARIA.com.au, accessed November 20, 2016 .
  13. ↑ a b Chart sources: AT / CH / UK / US , accessed on June 13, 2014.
  14. ^ The Free Association - Sugarman. Retrieved June 25, 2017 .
  15. ↑ Chart sources: CH , DE , fr