Every year there seems to bring at least one music documentary that gets tagged "the new Buena Vista Social Club". But to borrow from The Three Amigos!, this year's Buena Vista Social Club could be the real Buena Vista Social Club. Sorta. The film is Searching For Sugar Man and we've got a new internet-fresh clip to share with you.
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Searching For Sugar Man's subject is a musician whose time seemed to have come and gone. Sixto Rodriguez, billed for a brief moment in the early '70s as a folk singer to rival to Bob Dylan, was rumoured to have committed suicide on stage at the end of a gig.
Not happy to leave it there, Swedish filmmaker Malik Bendjelloul picked up the trail with some help from the musician's most fervent South African fans (including Stephen ‘Sugar’ Segerman in this clip) and ended up with a story that twists and turns like a sidewinder with a dodgy compass.
In short, those lazy Buena Vista comparisons may not be *quite *as cliched as they first appear. Like Rubén González, Ibrahim Ferrer and co, Rodriguez was a man whose shot at global recognition seemed to have come and gone; but like those Cuban crusaders, we've got a sneaking feeling that this story could run and run.
See for yourself when Searching For Sugar Man is released on July 26.