Erja Lyytinen

Erja Lyytinen

Erja Lyytinen is a Finnish blues and blues-rock singer and guitarist from Kuopio, Finland. Born in 1976, she comes from a musical family and builds her work around slide guitar and contemporary blues-rock, while also drawing on older blues traditions.

Recording career

Lyytinen enters a recording studio in the mid-2000s and signs to Germany’s Ruf Records in 2005, which leads to her international debut Pilgrimage. She follows this with Dreamland Blues, recorded in the United States with David and Kinney Kimbrough, the sons of Mississippi blues figure Junior Kimbrough. After touring extensively, she releases Grip of the Blues in 2008, which blends harder-edged blues with modern R&B.

Her 2010 album Voracious Love includes the orchestrated track “Bed of Roses”, with Marco Hietala of Nightwish on vocals and Apocalyptica cellist Paavo Lötjönen. On Forbidden Fruit in 2013, she returns to a more traditional blues direction. The Elmore James tribute album The Sky Is Crying follows in 2014 and is described as a stripped-down, old-school blues record. She then releases the live album Live in London, which combines Elmore James covers with original material.

In 2017 she issues Stolen Hearts, recorded at State of the Ark Studios in London with producer and engineer Chris Kimsey and mastered at Air Studios Mastering by Ray Staff. The album is mixed on the same EMI console Kimsey has used with the Rolling Stones. Another World follows as her next studio album and includes contributions from Sonny Landreth and former Michael Jackson guitarist Jennifer Batten. It also gives her first producer credit. The album is recorded, mixed and mastered across several international locations, including Gavin Lurssen’s Lurssen Mastering in Los Angeles, with mixing by Chris Bell in Austin, Texas.

Live work and collaborations

Lyytinen is a regular touring artist, with more than 100 headline shows across Europe each year mentioned in her profile. Early live exposure comes through the 2006 Blues Caravan tour in Europe and the United States. She later tours Finland, the UK and Canada, and makes concert appearances in India.

Her collaborators and performance partners include Heikki Silvennoinen, Sami Saari, Maria Hänninen, Jennifer Batten, Dan Aykroyd, Downchild Blues Band, Tom Jones, Sonny Landreth, Carlos Santana, Marco Hietala and Paavo Lötjönen. She also supports Tom Jones on his Finnish tour and performs with Downchild Blues Band at the Toronto Jazz Festival.

Awards and recognition

Lyytinen receives the European Blues Award for Best Guitarist and the European Guitarist of the Year award. The Sky Is Crying is named Best European Blues Album and Best Tribute Album of 2014 by Blues Underground Network, and also places in the top three international albums of that year in Blues Matters, where she is also ranked the number two international solo artist. After Live in London, she is voted the number one international solo artist by Blues Matters and named Artist of the Year at the Finnish Blues Awards.

She is also voted the seventh best blues guitarist in a MusicRadar poll, and her solo on “Bad Seeds” is later voted by Guitar World readers as the 10th best guitar solo of 2022.

Media and other work

Lyytinen appears on MTV Finland’s Tähdet, Tähdet and performs for large television audiences there. She also performs in front of 80,000 people in Helsinki on New Year’s Eve and shares the stage with Carlos Santana, who gives her the nickname “Lightning” in reference to Lightnin’ Hopkins. In addition to recording and performing, she writes a book titled Blues Queen (Blueskuningatar), first issued in Finnish.