"Georgia on my mind". History of blues from behind the iron curtain

Abstract

Blues is music stronger than slavery. Perhaps this is why the genre has not only overcome social and racial barriers, breaking the chains imposed on its original creators, but also easily penetrated even such well-fortified borders as the Iron Curtain and gained ardent supporters in places as geographically distant as Georgia in Europe. Although blues enjoys considerable popularity in Georgia, its history and development as a local musical genre have so far remained a phenomenon not described in the professional literature, and the source materials are dispersed and fragmentary. Consequently, when attempting to explore these processes, one must rely primarily on direct accounts of people and sources in the form of recordings, album covers, interviews, and other archival materials. The article uses information collected during face-to-face interviews conducted in March 2023 with music critics Koka Tskitishvili and Lasha Gabunia, and musicians Dawid Manijashvili, Paul Rimple, and Tamaz Tkinwaleli.