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Soul purpose

Alan Warboys

Aimee Anne Duffy's life story goes something like this: she was raised in a broken home in a backward town in the remotest part of Wales, never heard music until she was 18, when she suddenly discovered soul, was spotted by a talent agent and, hey presto, became the world's best-selling female artist.

Or at least that's the story everyone's being given.

'Apparently I grew up in a mud hut,' says Duffy, 24. 'Yes, we spoke Welsh, my family didn't have a record collection and I went to Sunday School. But it was normal. I didn't feel deprived. It's just made me appreciate how fortunate I am now.'

Having also been ubiquitously labelled 'the new Dusty Springfield', she's having to come to terms with being pigeon-holed.

The easy Duffy story is a feel-good tale of a girl's rise from obscurity to stardom that makes film directors go weak at the knees. It makes her the real-life equivalent of the character 'LV' in the 1998 film Little Voice, which stars Jane Horrocks as a mighty voiced, introverted young woman who is discovered after an entertainment mogul, played by Michael Caine, hears her singing Shirley Bassey songs in her bedroom.

The reality of Duffy's emergence, of course, is more textured, although there is some truth in each element. Not least, that in a year Duffy, as she's now simply known, went from being a virtual unknown to one of the most celebrated singers on the planet by virtue of a voice that evokes the singers of the golden ages of jazz and soul. Her debut album, Rockferry, was the best-selling British record last year, shifting more than 4 million units worldwide, and she's gone on to win a Grammy for best pop vocal album and three Brit Awards (best female solo artist, best breakthrough artist and best album).

She looks the part, too. The comparison to Springfield is as much down to her sexy image - smoky eyes, blonde hair and a penchant for miniskirts that harks back to the glamour of music's sepia-tinted 60s heyday - as the smouldering, seductive quality of her voice. If that's not enough, others have lumped her in with a plethora of big-voiced retro British female singers in a line that runs through Joss Stone, Kate Nash and Amy Winehouse to Adele.

So just how did Aimee Anne become Duffy?

'I'm not a glamour model, I'm not trying to be anything,' she says. 'It's just about the music. I didn't listen to a lot of different music growing up, so I never really had a style. I just wanted to sing.'

By most people's standards, she had a sheltered upbringing. Born in 1984, Duffy lived with her twin sister Katy and older sibling Kelly at the pub their parents ran in Nefyn, a small seaside town in northwest Wales, where Welsh was commonly spoken. Her parents split when she was 10, until which time she hadn't spoken much English. It's true also that Nefyn had no record shop and she didn't go to her first gig until she was 20, although she was exposed to music on the radio.

She loved singing from an early age, however, but was unable to get a place in the school choir because of her rough-hewn voice. Devoid of influences beyond the blokeish Blur and Oasis songs she liked to listen to on the radio, she began making up her own songs and dreaming of being able to perform. She wrote her first song at 13, about a tragedy that befell a local child.

'For years I just sang for myself, not my family or anyone else,' she says.

At 16, she decided to escape her parochial surroundings and headed, oddly, to Switzerland, where she dabbled in music with bands. After a few weeks she headed home and began making demos of her own songs while doing odd jobs as a barmaid, waitress and hotel chambermaid. It wasn't until she was 18 that she discovered the influences that would shape her sound.

After buying Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, she soon became a fan of other soul greats, such as Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin. She also cites the Righteous Brothers' Unchained Melody and Otis Redding's Sitting on the Dock of the Bay as key influences.

Her supposed big break came in 2003, when she finished second in Welsh-language Pop Idol-style TV talent show, Waw Ffactor. But that led only to a few dreary backing-singer gigs and it wasn't until a three-track tape she had sent around music labels elicited a call from long-time music promoter Jeannette Lee, a director of label Rough Trade, that her chance came. Lee paired her up with former Suede guitarist-turned-music producer Bernard Butler.

'I didn't even know who he was, but we met up and went out to chat and the ideas for songs just came,' she says.

Lee and Butler encouraged Duffy to stretch her vocal talents to the limit. 'It was like being with a lover who loves you enough to let you be yourself,' she says of her relationship with Butler.

He lavished the songs with a Motown feel, a modern homage to Phil Spector's 'wall of sound', and it was under his guidance that Duffy's vocals began to imitate rather than interpret the husky tones of Springfield and Britain's 60s equivalent, Cilla Black. Springfield, who died a decade ago, aged 59, recorded more than two dozen chart hits, including I Only Want to be With You and the ballad You Don't Have to Say You Love Me.

'It's flattering,' Duffy says of the comparison. 'It does make me feel slightly special and that I can do something great. But I want to be known as Duffy, not the new anyone. I want to be recognised for my own talents. I have my own stories to tell.'

Butler won producer of the year at the Brit Awards for his work with Duffy, but she has enough in her armoury to suggest she's more than his muse. Her own style ranges from the balladic Syrup & Honey, through the bluesy Warwick Avenue to the maudlin Stepping Stone. The chart-topping upbeat soul number Mercy and sultry follow-up Rain on Your Parade suggests she has plenty of latitude as she seeks her own identity going forward.

Duffy is no Winehouse, either. While her tattooed soul sister sings about not going into rehab to treat her drug addiction, Duffy sings about love and her limited experiences of it. As Winehouse has had her trials publicised in Britain's tabloid press, Duffy is the archetypal young, 21st-century British woman. At heart she's still an ordinary girl who likes hanging out with her mates down at the local pub, drinking Guinness and black (a pint topped with a dash of blackcurrant juice) and 'dancing round her handbag'.

'I'm just trying to take it all in,' she says. 'I don't want to look back and say I was a great success at 24 but then I went and pissed it up the wall.'

Her candour and self-deprecation are refreshing in the hype-prone music world. She sometimes comes across as a wide-eyed teenager still discovering the bright lights of London. Other times, she shows wisdom beyond her years about the superficiality and transience of celebrity. She's unabashed about her sexy image, but doesn't contrive it or present herself enigmatically. She's still an ing?nue - openly surprised that Hong Kong has a British expat population - and answers everything with a garrulous enthusiasm that suggests she has yet to have her personality moulded into a media-savvy package.

'I've never really left my hometown.' But she's coming to Asia because she has quickly drawn fans in the region. 'The demand is there. These people are into my record so I'm going to come and play for them. I'm just following where my music takes me.'

Duffy's aware she's in a celebrity whirl that can prove short-lived. She's level-headed about success, but any fears she may have of falling back into obscurity seem unfounded. She has already made major inroads in the US. She scored hits with singles Mercy and Warwick Avenue, made the cover of Spin magazine and appeared on Saturday Night Live. The Grammies should confirm her ascent.

'The US has such an amazing history of music. It means a lot to me,' she says. 'It's where the music I sing came from.'

Duffy, AsiaWorld-Arena, Mar 20, 8pm, HK$450, HK$650, HK$850 HK Ticketing. Inquiries: 3128 8288

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