Erja Lyytinen

Erja Lyytinen – Blues Queen is the life story of the 2000 era’s most accomplished Finnish blues guitarist: it’s the account of an uncompromising, strong-willed, gifted and persistent woman and her musical career, which started as a teenager, as part of her parents’ house band. Eventually, her road brought her to international acclaim amongst guitar aficionados everywhere.

It’s the account of a woman finding one’s own place in a blues scene ruled by male counterparts for over a hundred years. It’s a story of quieting the catcallers that were abundant when she started, and more so, about breaking glass ceilings. It’s a saga of stubborn perseverance and a need for personal development. It’s a tale of one’s own vision, footprint and gaining the respect of one’s peers.

It’s a tale of one female guitarist’s growth, on her journey amongst the long shadows of her heroes and idols, to be able to rise to the same stages are her esteemed predecessors and become a colleague of equal standing.

The book is also an everyday account of coping and survival in the crossfire of being a performing artist, an entrepreneur and a mother.

It tells of hard work and coincidences along the way, as well as key people encountered along her personal journey – some of which are deserving of praise, others not. This book sums up stories of luck and tears of frustration, along with the compromises made along the way and those left undone, which all have all contributed to the rise of a never before seen phenomenon. A phenomenon that entails how this blues woman rose from being an obscure, marginal musician to becoming a successful solo artist, a television celebrity and a Finnish national darling that garnered the praises of world-renowned stars like Jennifer Batten and Carlos Santana, winning over critics of the blues world en route to becoming a virtuoso lauded by the masses.