INA FORSMAN

Ina Forsman is the one you've been waiting for. Maybe you've caught a glimpse of her on the blues stages of Europe, blowing out the speakers with that burnt-honey voice. Perhaps you marked her for future greatness when she represented Finland at the 2014 European Blues Challenge, or during her early guest spots with Guy Verlinde and Helge Tallqvist. Now, as this next-big-thing releases her self-titled debut album - and rocks the house on the famous Ruf Records Blues Caravan 2016 - it's time for a proper introduction. Released on Ruf Records, Ina Forsman is everything that great music used to real, raw, written from the heart and shot from the hip. Likewise, Ina herself is everything that great frontwomen are meant to enigmatic, honest, passionate and dangerous. By the time you've heard these ten self-penned songs - plus a stellar cover of Nina Simone's "I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl" - you'll know her inside-out, and want to know more. Read on. Play Ina Forsman and the first thing that hits you is the voice. That astonishing delivery is a major weapon in Ina's arsenal, and the icing on the big-band brass and soul-blues piano of these breakup and redemption songs. Growing up in Helsinki, Finland, she always hoped it would take her places. "I was six years old when I first said out loud that I wanted to be a singer. My influences go back to the time my aunt gave me my first Christina Aguilera album when I was seven. For me, a great singer is someone who has power in their voice and isn't afraid to use it, in all of its colours and shades". Yet Ina's debut album goes far deeper than a God-given voicebox. These eleven songs speak of an artist who lives and breathes the blues, having gigged from the age of seventeen and received guidance in the genre from Finnish harmonica legend Helge Tallqvist. "Helge was the first person who introduced blues to me," she remembers. "He took me to the studio and put our band together a couple of years ago