Sixto Rodriguez
About love, don't be a silent partner. And be gentle with your anger.Collection: Anger
My family, we're indigenous people from San Luis Potosi in Central Mexico. My father moved to Detroit and brought all of us because the automobile companies were paying great wages.Collection: Family
You either live under a rock or you walk in the sunshine. That's pretty much how it goes.
I'm not getting old, I'm getting dead.
Voice is the first instrument.
You see there's music and there's the music business - and they're different.
You want to know the secret of life? It is to breathe in and out. And the mystery of life? You never know when it is going to end.
I did a lot of heavy-lifting - construction, demolition, that kind of thing. Dusty, dirty work.
There's no shame in hard work.
The film, 'Searching For Sugar Man,' has excited my music career.
The social realism of ' Establishment Blues' or 'Like Janis,' are what I chose to use to express what was happening in the U.S. and what was happening to me personally.
There are beautiful songs people write about love and dancing. But it's political issues that should be addressed.
I don't like litter and blight.
I love my country. It's just the government I don't trust.
Education, information and knowledge are all one.
I've had such an ordinary life.
Was 'Crucify Your Mind' dedicated to anybody? No, it was a generalization. 'A Most Disgusting Song' is like that, too.
Every 20 years or so, I feel that young people confront the same issues - a new war, new challenges.
I was ready for the world. I don't think the world was ready for me.
Where other people live in an artificial world, I feel I live in the real world. And nothing beats reality.
I like to say that I do covers of my own songs. And I have about a dozen bands all over the world. That's no exaggeration. I have a South African band, an Australian band, Swedish bands, English bands, American bands. They're all notable musicians, too.
Rock 'n' roll is a crazy world, and it's how things work out you can't predict.
I'm a musical political, I tend to stick to what I see happening outside my front door.
I loved Jimmy Reed, the chord changes, the lyrics.
You can't get around certain stuff, whether it's in Darfur or on your block at home. What makes us political is your home turf, your family, your life space. You walk down the street, and automatically a human being is territorial, and political happens in that.
I play by ear - I'm self-taught. And so everything I do is through that technique.
I'm Mexican, and we do a lot of singing, and it was my brother's guitar that I'd practice on, and he would say, 'Who's that playing my guitar?'
The earth is going to survive, it's the people that aren't.
My dad, he was my role model - my mom died when I was three - and the way we honor our parents is remembering their heritage.
Music is a living art. You re-create it.
All my life, I never gave up on music and though there was a lot of disappointment for some that the commercial thing never happened, it has never been a disappointment for me.
I like people who can write and sing, and play an instrument.
I have a sloppy style of playing guitar. A percussive style. Unique in fact.
I don't much listen to music as I study it: who's doing what, who wrote it.
I have fun with words.
Some want to do pretty songs with pretty words about pretty people, but that ain't me.
I stopped chasing the music dream back in '74.
I sing about social issues, not the boy-girl stuff.
Beware of current truths.
I'm a lucky man.
You never throw away your work clothes. There is always something to do in the house.
In Detroit there are a lot of houses they are going to demolish because no one is taking care of them.
I wasn't very successful at running for office.
I just want to be treated like an ordinary legend.
Musicians want to be heard. So I'm not hiding. But I do like to leave it there onstage and be myself, in that sense. Because some people carry it with them.
The Isley Brothers, there's a group that stays together because they're a family band.
I've been a candidate for office at least eight times. A couple times for mayor, state representative, city council.
I'm not an ascetic.
I live below my means. I think that's a good discipline because you never can tell.
My work is more to me than just music.