Emu Lehtinen

According to Helsingin Sanomat, Lehtinen was “a local guru for people who would be curious to listen to music irrespective of genres, and a person with whose help customers would find wonderful new experiences starting from clean slate.”[3] According to another Helsinki newspaper, Hufvudstadsbladet, Lehtinen was “a living legend in Finnish music circles”.

Next to the place there was a green space and a stretch of the coast of the Gulf of Finland, and this is where Lehtinen's interest in birdwatching originated.

[5] Lehtinen's father was an architect, who worked for the architectural department of the Kulutusosuuskuntien keskusliitto (KK), which was part of a well known consumers' co-operative called the E-liike, while his mother was a housewife, who took care of the family's six children.

KK bought the Ströms manor and founded an institute called Osuuskauppakoulu there, and at that juncture 10 of their workers' families moved there in 1954.

He was given his nickname "Emu" during his school years: the classroom for natural history had a board, where the students could make a note of passing migratory birds.

[5] In 1967, Emu got interested in jazz, "the same year in which there were loads of totally fantastic jazz concerts in Helsinki, such as the Charles Lloyd quartet, Jimi Hendrix was the kind of guy who opened the gates to all kinds of directions, then there was the Miles Davis quintet, Archie Shepp, all of them during that one year.

[2] Early in 1970 a record store called Tunnelin levy was founded in the Helsinki Asematunneli, the future metro station, and in late summer that year there was an advertisement in Helsingin Sanomat that a shopkeeper was required there.

[5] Helsingin Sanomat wrote the following about Emu: He was never the sole owner of Digelius Music nor its only employee, but he became the soul of the shop, and quite deservedly so.

His bicycle was often inside the shop before 8 am, and the lights went out only after 6 pmDigelius Music and Emu became synonyms for excellent customer service.

However, a query came in the same day from Lieksa, Eastern Finland, asking if the store had any records by the French singer Joe Dassin.

Later he received thanks in an e-mail, in which the man told him that he ran a sheep farm and that in gratitude, the first-born lamb of that spring had been named "Digelius".

In addition, it was said that Lehtinen had acted as an encompassing and encouraging flag bearer for jazz music and as a person who brings musicians and their audiences together.