“Sauli is dead,” Tiina Räsänen heard on the phone – so shocking events progressed

Today, September 9th, the 30th anniversary of the sad news, when Tango King Sauli Lehtonen died of injuries in a deer crash at the age of 20.

The whole of Finland was shocked by the news, as Lehtonen was crowned as a tango king just over a year earlier.

Lehto was described in 1995 in Iltalehti, “one of the most promising young singers in recently.” The people remembered, and still remembers, Lehtonen’s exceptionally strong interpretation and charisma.

A special feature in Lehtonen was his way of singing his eyes.

– The performers are taught the importance of eye contact with the public. The contact between Saul and his audience was not based on flirting, and the connection started much deeper. He charmed. He conquered, Iltalehti was written.

In the same year, Tiina Räsänen, crowned by Lehtonen as a tango queen, remembers the tragic events of the 90s well. Although Lehtonen and Räsänen had only had a good year to know each other for over a year, there was a deep confidence and friendship between the duo.

In the 90s, the tango royals did not gig together in the same way as today. According to Räsänen, they had only two gigs with Lehtonen during the year. They kept in touch with the newly launched mobile phones, where the coverage was completely random.

– We talked about gigs on the phone and talked about everything. We shared all the things to each other. Saul could talk about anything, Räsänen recalls.

Räsänen is aware that the late king was considered shy and retreating. He didn’t know the grove as such.

– He wasn’t like that with friends. He was very brave as a man to talk about things. He never came with a moment that there was nothing to say or could not speak. He was a very opposite personality in a civilian as a performer.

– I sometimes asked him why on earth he always sings his eyes: “Well I don’t really know what else I would do,” he replied.

Like Lehtonen, Räsänen also had a fateful Friday night. Late at night, he arrived home on Siilinjärvi, put his phone silent and went to bed.

In the morning he heard what had happened. Lehtonen had died of injuries he received in Kolari at Töölö Hospital at one time at night. A dad who was driving a crash car Heikki Lehtonen survived.

– When I opened the phone in the morning, I saw dozens of messages and calls. Tangoprine Marjut Rothovius finally caught me and told me that Saul was dead. I thought it was a bad flap. I had never died any young loved ones. The situation was so strange and unnatural that I thought it was a joke. I thought it was just a bad joke, it couldn’t be true, Räsänen times.

However, the work did not give Räsänen time for sadness, but he went to Järvenpää the same night. The gig was a quiet moment in the memory of Lehtonen.

– After a quiet moment I sang Campfire atmospherefrom the Waltz movie Hare’s year. Even to this day, I play the same song and think about Saul.

– For almost a year I followed and was afraid when I saw a deer warning brand. I was pretty sure I was driving a deer crash myself.

The funeral day was rainy and sad. At the funeral, Räsänen realized that there was no longer a deciduous.

– Saul’s mother had asked me to sing at the funeral, and of course I didn’t think I would refuse. I haven’t sang at the funeral since then, and I don’t think I do it right away.

The song Lehtonen’s mother hoped Here under the North Star. Räsänen remembers for a moment like a slow film.

– That situation was completely absurd. I sang the song and thought my friend was next to me in the coffin. Saul’s mother broke into millions of pieces from sadness. At the same time, I was 19 years old myself. Nothing was reasonable in that situation, says Räsänen.

– It took 11 years for Saul’s death when I called his parents and talked to his mother on the phone. I thought during the call that Sauli never had time to make his mother grandma. At that time, Saul could have already had his own child.

The death of a friend brought Räsänen a perspective on life. After the loss, Räsänen has not taken anything for granted.

– I couldn’t get to know him for a year, but of course we get to know each other well. Sauli has told me that art must be humble in front of art, but there is no need to humble it. He was very wise as a man in his twenties. That idea is still good to remember today at the artist’s work.

Lehtonen’s courage remembered Räsänen. Räsänen has been thinking a lot about what Lehtonen would have become if he hadn’t died.

– Where, on the other hand, anyone knows how Saul’s life could have gone. After all, after 31 years, he wouldn’t be even in the industry. We will always be wondering about what Sauli left. However, we were only in his twenties, so life could have carried him so he would have done a moment in the music industry and then maybe interested in something else, Räsänen ponders.

– He was so brave that he could have dared to jump out of this ring, even if money was coming. He was never exported. I have always said that Saul was built on older stems, I do not know that someone had previously decided that he hasn’t had as many years to come as we do, Räsänen concludes.

The brutality of life

Jaska Mäkynen, who had been crowned with a tango king for just a few years from Lehto, looked at Lehtonen’s career with joy. In 1991, Mäkynen was in his less than forty and experienced everything in his life while Lehtonen, who was studying as a college graduate student, made a career in music.

– Saul had a lot of things to go and feel. After all, it was once or twice when we had time to see during the year. He had always moved a step forward, both in music and as a human being. He was a tremendously positive young gentleman.

– Everybody knows that he was a bit shy, but when he talked to him about his two, he was first and foremost friendly and talkative.

Mäkynen heard Lehtonen’s death on the radio.

-I went to the village by car and I had an Iskelmä radio on. The news said that there was a deer crash with a young male singer in the last night late at night. I was going to drive the ditch myself because I was scared. I immediately got an intuition that it had to be Sauli because I knew where he had been on the gig.

Mäkynen stopped his car along the road and pondered the situation. Soon it really became clear to him that it was Sauli Lehtonen.

– That made me think about the brutality of life and the fact that you never know when the moment of departure is.

My time to go is

The 1989 tango queen Arja Koriseva has been closely following the rivalry of the Seinäjoki Tango Market in Seinäjoki. In 1994, the gaze was specifically attached to Lehtonen.

– Sauli also contacted me when he wanted to study a song in Jyväskylä. He knew I had been studying classical songs for seven years, so he asked who would be a good teacher. I learned from the fact that he was really purposefully becoming a singer. He was serious about this profession and knew that his instrument had to be able to use and maintain it to last for a long time. Unfortunately, his short career ended, Koriseva recalls.

Koriseva remembers Lehtonen as a sympathetic, calm and slightly quiet young man. At the same time, Lehtonen showed a strong ambition.

– As a person, he wasn’t so outwardly, but the sound was awesome. It certainly surprised many.

Koriseva was also present at Lehtonen’s funeral. According to him, the tango circles are tight, and colleagues are shared with the moments of happiness and the major tragedies.

– At the same time, we are also touring professional drivers around Finland, so the probability and threat always exist that something happens on the road. Then, when it happens to someone, it touches us all.

– It can be anyone and when it was a young artist at the beginning of his career, it was a tough piece.

Lehtonen often comes to mind in the form of music.

– I was recently performing at Bregenzen in Austria at the opera festival. When I chose tango for my software, one of the songs was My time to go is. That song always reminds me of Saul.

My time to go is -In the last record of Lehtonen just weeks before death.