Released March 1970 Artist Sixto Rodriguez | Length 32:23 Release date March 1970 Label RCA Victor | |
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Genres Rock music, Blues, Soul music Similar Sixto Rodriguez albums, Blues albums |
Cold Fact is the debut album from American singer-songwriter Rodriguez. It was released in the United States on the Sussex label in March 1970. The album sold very poorly in the United States (Rodriguez was himself an unknown in the U.S.), but managed to sell well in both South Africa and Australia, with Rodriguez touring Australia in 1979.
Contents
In 1971 the album was released in South Africa by A&M Records. In 1976, several thousand copies of Cold Fact were found in a New York warehouse and sold out in Australia in a few weeks. It went to No. 23 on the Australian album charts, staying on the charts for 55 weeks. In 1998 Cold Fact was awarded a platinum disc in South Africa, and was five-times platinum in Australia. Rodriguez has since toured South Africa and Australia with much success, but remained relatively unknown in his native country of the USA. This began to change after the reissues of his albums in the U.S. by Light in the Attic Records in 2008 and 2009, and even further in 2012 with the Academy Award winning documentary film Searching for Sugar Man, which soon led to appearances on major American television shows like 60 Minutes and The Late Show with David Letterman.
Cold Fact was featured as a "Buried Treasure" in the August 2002 issue of Mojo.
Track listing
All songs written by Sixto Rodriguez, except (5, 10) by Gary Harvey, Mike Theodore and Dennis Coffey.
Personnel
There were no musicians credited on the original album sleeve, but Rodriguez and Mike Theodore have filled in the gaps:
Technical
Samples and features
"Sugar Man" was sampled in "You're Da Man", from the 2001 Nas album Stillmatic.
In 2014, the French Deep House and Electro music producer Tristan Casara featured "Hate Street Dialogue" on his album for a new release credited to "The Avener Feat. Rodriguez". The release charted in France.
Compilations
"Sugar Man" was the opening track on David Holmes' 2002 compilation Come Get It I Got It.
Chart performance
Songs
1Sugar Man3:49
2Only Good for Conversation2:18
3Crucify Your Mind2:32