Erja Lyytinen

Erja Lyytinen is one of a rare breed – she plays guitar brilliantly and manages to sing in her own voice without just mangling ‘Americanese’.

This is probably her most confident album to date and certainly shows that Blues can be played in Finland just as well as the Thames Delta.
She first appeared on one of Ruf records ‘Blues Caravan’ tours alongside Ian Parker and Aynsley Lister and showed then that she was an above average slide player and ‘interesting’ vocalist but she has since developed a brilliant and very individual vocal style and playing standards like Elmore James ‘Baby Please Set A Date’ or Singleton and Mcrae’s ‘Person To Person’ her voice is the real difference between her version and many, many others.
On the other hand her guitar playing, especially on the title track sets her a long way aside from the millions of SRV & Clapton wannabees playing the same songs.

There are a couple of self penned numbers – ‘Erja’s Contribution to Jazz’ which is anything but straight jazz (think Dick Dale meets bossa nova) and ‘King of the Slide Guitar’ – and they are fine but for me it is all about her interpretations of Blues classics and she shines on the Elmore James numbers including an incendiary live version of ‘Dust My Broom’ where she somehow manages to make it sound fresh.

One of those albums that you expect to be walking away from shaking your head and thinking “Why bother” but actually makes you into a Blues fan all over again.