Erja Lyytinen

Erja Lyytinen (born July 7, 1976 in Kuopio, Finland) is a Finnish vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter.

Erja Lyytinen began playing the guitar when she was 15 years old.

Around the same time, she started writing her own songs.

In high school, she performed with various projects, one of them being a soul-influenced Brothers & Sisters band, in which she was the singer.

At the time she was influenced heavily by artists like Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles.

Later she found the music of KoKo Taylor, and she mentions one of her favourite songs from Taylor was the piece "I'm A Woman" from The Earthshaker album.

She also mentions Bonnie Raitt as a great influence.

Throughout 1997 Lyytinen spent a year in Sweden studying in Malmö Musikhögskolan as an exchange student.

She returned to Finland to study music education at Sibelius Academy.

At the time she was the first woman to study electric guitar as a major at that institution.

Lyytinen took part in Finland's MTV3 channel's series called Kulkuri ja Kaunottaret (The Rover and The Beauties) in 1999.

There she worked as a bandleader and as a lead guitarist.

The music on the program was mainly based around the style of Finnish schlager music.

Many famous Finnish artists of that genre performed on the series.

Attention!, Lyytinen's first album was published with "Dave's Special" band in 2002.

The songs on the album were mostly danceable jump and swing blues numbers and were for the most part written by Lyytinen herself.

Throughout her career Lyytinen has been the opening act for Robert Plant, Focus and Tom Jones, and played with Joe Bonamassa, Jennifer Batten, Sonny Landreth and Carlos Santana, among others.

On November 10, 2002 Lyytinen was the opening act for Robert Plant, the former vocalist of Led Zeppelin.

She has mentioned that the occasion is one of her most treasured concert memories.

Erja Lyytinen was the only Finnish act to perform at "Puistoblues" in 2003, the biggest blues festival in Finland, where she played on the main stage.

Her second album Wildflower was released at the festival.

The artists KoKo Taylor and Bonnie Raitt, two of her biggest influences and idols, also performed at the festival, and Lyytinen had the chance to meet Bonnie Raitt there.

At the time Lyytinen balanced between touring and studying at the Sibelius Academy.

Later on, in 2003 she went to study abroad in Denmark.

In Kobenhavn Rytmisk Musikkonservatorium she studied with Paul Banks, jazz guitarist Jacob Ficher, singer Etta Cameron, and with guitarist Billy Cross, who had played with Bob Dylan.

In the spring of 2003, Lyytinen was awarded a stipend to attend the Musician's Institute of Technology in Los Angeles.

There she got to study with Scott Henderson, who has played in Chick Corea's Electric Band, and with Keith Wyatt who, according to her, kept amazing lectures about the history of blues.

Thomas Ruf from the German Ruf Records label brought his Blues Caravan tour to Finland in 2005.

There Lyytinen got to jam with female blues artists Candye Kane, Ana Popovic and Sue Foley, who at the time had contracts with Ruf Records.

After that Ruf offered a record deal to Lyytinen which led to recording her international debut album, "Pilgrimage".

The album was recorded in Memphis and Mississippi with two other artists, Aynsley Lister and Ian Parker.

In 2006 Lyytinen had a chance to record her next album Dreamland Blues in Oxford, Mississippi with local musicians.

On this record, her playing is more slide guitar-oriented than on earlier albums.

In Finland, the album was picked as the "Album of the Year" by Bluesministeri (The Bluesminister) radio show, which was broadcast on YLE (Finnish public service media company).

In the same year, Lyytinen also toured with the Blues Caravan.

The Grip of the Blues album was released in 2008.

Lyytinen has mentioned that she think of this record as her first "real" album as it was the first record to feature her own band.

The line-up for the album was Rami Eskelinen (drums), Iiro Kautto (bass), and Davide Floreno (guitar).

At the beginning of 2009 Lyytinen toured again with "Ruf's Blues Caravan".

Other artists on that tour were Joanne Shaw Taylor and Oli Brown.