Rodriguez suit to reveal singer’s lost royalties

A lawsuit filed on Friday between two of Rodriguez’s past producers may uncover the now infamous lost royalties highlighted in 2012’s multi-award-winning documentary Searching for Sugar Man.

Producer Harry Balk and his Michigan-based company Gomba Music are accusing music executive Clarence Avant and his company, Interior Music, of copyright infringement, fraud and wrongful interference, or intentional interference with contracts.

He claims Interior Music withheld years of royalties from Rodriguez’s first two albums, Cold Fact (1970) and Coming from Reality (1971) in a “fraudulent scheme”.

Balk claims the now 71-year-old Michigan singer-songwriter was signed to a five-year songwriting contract from 1966-1971 with Gomba when Avant signed him and had him use a false songwriting name. Interestingly, Balk produced Rodriguez’s (real name Sixto Rodriguez) first single I’ll Slip Away in 1967, which was released under the name Rod Riguez.

Rodriguez himself has not been named in the suit. Searching for Sugar Man documents his surprise that his music sold an estimated 500,000 copies in Apartheid-stricken South Africa. However, after the release of the film in July 2012 Rodriguez allegedly hired a lawyer to investigate his royalties. At the time Avant was quoted in the Detroit Free Press saying, “I wish him the best. The fame will be over within a year.”

After South Africans rediscovered him in 1998, Rodriguez was able to retire from his construction job. He later reissued his two records and toured globally; his Australian shows with The Break as backing band in 2013 took in Bluesfest, Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane, and the reissue of Cold Fact peaked at #30 on the ARIA Albums Chart and reached Platinum certification selling upwards of 50,000.

Before his massive success in South Africa, Australia had already discovered him when a few copies of Cold Fact were shipped Down Under. Radio announcer Holger Brockman played his track Sugar Man on Sydney’s 2SM radio and in early 1979 Michael Coppel promoted his 15-date Australian tour.

The case is being heard in Federal District Court in Detroit with information regarding royalties expected to surface.

Rodriguez’s lawyer, Mark A. Levinsohn, has told the New York Times his client is “still keenly interested in finding out what happened all those years ago and where the money went.”