duffy.com

Aimee Anne Duffy, known professionally as Duffy, is a Welsh singer-songwriter. She has been hailed as the new Dusty Springfield and Amy Winehouse. she debuted at number one on the UK Album Charts with her album Rockferry, so far, selling over 3 million copies worldwide. Duffy is the first Welsh female to achieve a number one pop single in the past 25 years with her second single Mercy.

Duffy-Warwick Avenue

After finishing her GCSEs in Pembrokeshire, Duffy returned to Nefyn when She was 15, and started singing in various local bands. Following an unsuccessful music project in Switzerland, Duffy returned to Wales in 2003 and was invited to appear on Wawffactor, a Welsh television show on S4C which journalists unfamiliar with Wales have mistakenly compared to pop Idol. She was expected to win, but came second to winner Lisa Pedrig. Duffy claims that she was conned into the appearance and called it "the unhappiest time in my life".

In her teens Duffy wanted and expected to be a world famous pop star and let others use her "as a vehicle for their vision not mine". At age 18, thinking her dreams were not going to come true, She "became almost a quite withdrawn singer." After a re-evaluation she decided to just make music for no other purposes than her own fulfillment.

Duffy was elected president of the Students Union at Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor in Pwllheli, North Wales before transferring to the University of Chester in England. Advised by a lecturer to "Go on the dole, love, and become a singer," She left and worked for an optician, while building up a following in Alexander's (a local jazz and blues club) performing with guitarist David Burton from the band The Invisible Wires.

She recorded a three-song-EP in Welsh in 2004 and also appeared on two tracks on the album See You in the Morning by Mint Royale while working as a waitress and in a fishery. Owen Powell of Catatonia and Richard Parfitt of Newport band 60ft Dolls, introduced Duffy in August 2004 to former Public Image Ltd. member turned music manager and part-owner of Rough Trade Records, Jeanette Lee. Lee moved Duffy to Crouch End in London, and orchestrated a meeting between Duffy and Suede's ex-guitar player Bernard Butler.

After Butler had given Duffy a soul music "education" by downloading tracks on to her iPod that She could listen to while around London or travelling back to Wales—including Al Green, Bettye Swann, Ann Peebles, Beyoncé, Doris Duke, Scott Walker, Phil Spector and Burt Bacharach—the pair then co-wrote with her and helped create a new retro sound.


...Duffy is a Welsh singer-songwriter...