On any given day, you can find Sergey Green, a.k.a. “Gringo,” sitting on his back porch, smoking, jacking his guitar. Her dog, Jim, lies at her feet.
This could be a scene straight out of the Mississippi Delta. But it is Bacca Topola, a village in northern Serbia, a cafe town at the end of a bus line.
It only took one listen for Greene to hear the blues and know it was what he was supposed to be playing. Green, who is originally from St. Petersburg, Russia, now tours Serbia with his guitar, singing American country music and the blues.
“I feel like this music is like my pulse,” he said. “It’s a strange feeling, a really magical feeling. I said to myself, “Sergey, maybe the blues is more than music.”
Green wrote an entire blues opera entitled “Tumbleweed.” It tells the tragic story of a broken-hearted man with nothing left but his six-string and the allure of train tracks stretching into the horizon.
Green has the blues, but he’s never been to the US. In his head, though, he’s trapped across the country with a guitar on his back. He also learned English by listening to blues legends such as Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy.
Green said there is a small blues scene in St. Petersburg and Moscow. But he said singing the blues in Russian is like watching a movie with sound. Something important has been lost.
“Some mystical collaboration between the lyrics and the guitar sound, e.g. You know, it burns inside you like a small fire,” he said. “Or maybe a big fire?”
Green said he left Russia last fall in search of a more peaceful place to let those creative fires burn. He said he has no plans to go back anytime soon.
Petar Mitrik contributed to the coverage of this story.