Erja Lyytinen – Biography

Since the release of her tenth studio album Stolen Hearts in 2017, Erja Lyytinen has starred on MTV Finland’s Tähdet, Tähdet show, picked up the much-coveted European Guitarist of the Year award, performed in front of 80,000 people in her hometown of Helsinki on New Year's Eve, shared the stage with the legends such as Carlos Santana, Dan Aykroyd and Jennifer Batten, supported Sir Tom Jones as well as clocking up in excess of 100 headline shows across Europe per annum.
Lyytinen’s musical pallet is vast, encompassing the very best of contemporary blues-rock whilst inspired and influenced by the blues greats of yore. And that respect for those guitar greats has been reciprocated throughout the years.
In June 2018 Erja got to open for Santana at Helsinki’s Kaisaniemi Park where he invited the High Flying Finn to play on stage in front of 20,000 people. Carlos was full of praise declaring that “It was inspiring to see her play. It was from the future and I like the future”. It was here also where Santana gave Erja the nickname “Lightning” referring to Lightnin’ Hopkins. Similarly, celebrated slide guitar master Sonny Landreth, upon discovering Lyytinen's music remarked: "Things are going well for her and for good reason."

Erja Lyytinen’s self-produced latest album Another World marks the next chapter in both her personal and professional life. For Lyytinen’s latest offering she called in a whole raft of her esteemed friends and colleagues that include slide guitar wizard Sonny Landreth and former Michael Jackson guitarist Jennifer Batten.

Erja´s path to becoming “The Queen Of Slide Guitar” was unveiled in her first biography Blues Queen (Blueskuningatar), which came out in Finnish last Fall 2019.

Erja was ranked #14 on Guitar World´s “30 Best Blues Guitarists Today” alongside peers and legends from the blues genre such as Joe Bonamassa, Eric Clapton, Derek Trucks, Buddy Guy and John Mayer to name but a few.