COLD FACT is the astonishing debut album by Rodriguez. Astonishing for many reasons- the beautifully crafted songwriting; observational story-telling and social comment; state of the art production; and of course Rodriguez lovely conversation vocal style accompanied by acoustic guitar, strings and hints of psychedelia.
On completion of the recording sessions, all involved with the project were certain that they had a hit on their hands. Unfortunately they didn't and things only got worse with the following album COMING FROM REALITY.
For Rodriguez life went on and he left his musical 'career' behind as he raised his family in Detroit, continuing to work in the demolition trade.
The tradegy of this story is that if it was not for the self interest of his manager (who hid the fact that the album was selling overseas and pocketed the money) we would have many many more superb albums by this wonderfully tallented human being.
PERSONAL NOTES:
I spent my pre-teen years growing up in South Africa, so I was very familiar with the music of Rodriguez. To us he was one of the greats and his album sat comfortably alongside those of The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Deep Purple and Jimi Hendrix. This was a time long before the internet, so the only information we had was contained on the album cover. The COLD FACT album cover features a god-like image of the man himself sitting cross legged in a bubble; below this is a series of black and white repetative images - a drug store, a factory, a posing girl and garbage cans. It is very Andy Warhol. Very Pop Art. It's a great cover.