Lettoman

I was born in a village in Eastern Finland called Korpijärvi. My parents were farmers, like almost all in rural areas. Life was hard, so as kids we were expected to participate in work on the farm.

One day I said to my father, that I want a guitar and I want to learn to play and sing like Elvis. My father just laughed and said to me, “Boy, if you really want that, you have to work even harder than now. You have to choose; do you want to eat or dream?”

One evening, as I listened to Finnish radio (at that time we had only 2 or 3 different channels) I heard blues music for the first time followed by the story of the musician... A poor guy working in the field but playing guitar every Sunday! I realized how similar our stories were, except I didn’t have any real instruments. So, I asked again if I could have my own guitar. We made a contract and agreed that if I woke up every morning at 5:30am to take care of the cows then my father would buy me an acoustic guitar and I could start playing it.

After six rather long months, my father went to Kuopio and bought me my first guitar. It was far from new and looked awful, but that was the day that Lettoman was born! I started to practice how to play guitar and sing. It wasn´t easy, because I didn´t have any teachers who could help me. But I really wanted to learn to play. Quite soon I started to write my own songs. Finally, after 30 years, these songs are ready to be shared with the world. This is Lettoman´s story.