Duffy Jones (born Aimée Anne Duffy; 23 June 1984), known mononymously as Duffy, is a Welsh singer and actress. Her music style has been described as a mixture of soul, blue-eyed soul, pop rock, neo soul and pop music.
Duffy's 2008 debut album, Rockferry, topped the UK Albums Chart and also topped the charts in several music markets, leading to worldwide attention. It followed the lead single "Mercy", which topped the UK Singles Chart and also topped the chart in several countries and the top ten in twelve others. In 2009, Duffy received the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album for Rockferry, one of three nominations, and won three out of four Brit Awards nominations, for British Breakthrough, Best British Female and Best British Album. In 2010, she made her acting debut in the film Patagonia and released her second studio album Endlessly to moderate success.
Duffy vanished from the public eye in 2011, eventually self-reporting in 2020 that this had been due to experiencing abduction and rape. All musical endeavours and scheduled performances were cancelled until 2015, when she appeared in the film Legend and contributed three songs to its soundtrack; since 2015, she has again ceased performing. According to Duffy's official website, she is currently signed to Polydor Records, which operates under Universal Music Group.
Duffy was born on 23 June 1984 in Bangor, and was brought up by her English father John Duffy and Welsh mother Joyce (née Williams) in Nefyn. Duffy's parents divorced when she was 10 and she moved to Letterston, near the Pembrokeshire town of Fishguard, with her mother and two sisters.
She attended Ysgol Nefyn (Nefyn School), Gwynedd on the Llŷn Peninsula and Sir Thomas Picton School in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire as a child. At the age of 17, she attended the Pwllheli campus of Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor to study for A-levels. She subsequently went to the University of Chester and studied Commercial Music Production on the Warrington campus. From 2004, she studied Performing Arts at the Parkgate campus.
In September 1998, at the age of 14, Duffy was briefly put in a police safe house when authorities uncovered a plot by her stepfather's ex-wife to pay a hitman £3,000 to kill her stepfather, Philip Smith. Smith's ex-wife, Dawn Watson, was sentenced to a 3½-year jail term for soliciting to murder. "I was so terrified. I felt so ill", Duffy recounted in 2008, as reported by the NME. Duffy describes living in the safe house as a dog-eat-dog, claustrophobic and isolating experience. Aged 15, she ran away back to her father's home in Nefyn. Duffy said in retrospect, "It was a horrendous thing to do." Her mother and her sisters did not speak to her for about a year afterwards. In reaction to her parents' break-up, her next three years were a rebellious period that included binge drinking and stealing a rowing boat.
After finishing her GCSEs in Pembrokeshire, Duffy returned to Nefyn, to live with her father, when she was fifteen, and started singing in various local bands. Duffy then spent six weeks in Switzerland (before she started college), collaborating with the writer-producer Soren Mounir, under the name Soulego. She was advised by a lecturer at Chester University to "Go on the dole, love, and become a singer". She also built up a following at Alexander's, a local jazz and blues club in Chester, where she performed with guitarist David Burton from the band The Invisible Wires, and met songwriter Lucia Cordaro, going on to perform and record one of her songs ("I Melt"). Duffy returned to Wales in 2003 and was invited to appear on Wawffactor, a Welsh television talent show. She was expected to win but came second to winner Lisa Pedrick.
In 2004, following success on Wawffactor, Duffy recorded a three-song Welsh extended play, titled Aimée Duffy, while working part-time in two jobs as waitress and in a fishmongers. It achieved Welsh chart success in 2008, charting at number one on the "Siart C2" music chart. Duffy, now in high demand, appeared on Mint Royale's See You in the Morning as a back-up singer. Duffy was introduced to Jeanette Lee of Rough Trade Records in August 2004, after singing Richard Parfitt's "Oh Boy". Lee moved Duffy to Crouch End in London, orchestrating a meeting between Duffy and Suede's ex-guitar player Bernard Butler. Lee, with Rough Trade, would eventually manage Duffy. 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, the pair co-wrote with her and helped create a new retro sound. The music included tracks by Al Green, Bettye Swann, Ann Peebles, Doris Duke, Scott Walker, Phil Spector and Burt Bacharach. Duffy described Bettye Swann as one of her biggest inspirations, particularly her song "Cover Me".
2007–2008: Rockferry and international breakthrough
Duffy was contracted to A&M Records (UK) on 23 November 2007. She performed on the BBC Two television show Later with Jools Holland, which resulted in a second appearance on the related broadcast Hootenanny, where Duffy performed with Eddie Floyd. On 22 February 2008, she appeared on Later with Jools Holland for a third time and performed "Rockferry", "Mercy", and "Stepping Stone". Duffy made appearances on the BBC Two television programme The Culture Show on 23 February 2008, performing "Mercy". In January 2008, Duffy came second to Adele in the annual BBC News Online poll of industry experts Sound of 2008, for acts to emerge in the coming year. In Wales, following Duffy's recent promotion of her music, Aimée Duffy reached number-one on the "Siart C2" music chart. By 2007, Duffy was finalising her debut album effort, to be titled Rockferry, after Rock Ferry, where her grandmother lives. She subsequently struck a US label deal with Mercury Records, a newly re-activated imprint of Island Def Jam Music Group. The first single from the album, also titled "Rockferry" was critically well-received with Allmusic calling it a "grand, sweeping ballad".
Butler and his musical partner David McAlmont, along with a number of other musicians, formed the backbone of Duffy's band for her debut album, Rockferry, which was released on A&M Records on 3 March 2008. The black-and-white album art and video for the title track were shot by directors Luke Seomore and Joseph Bull, on and around the Ffestiniog Railway in Porthmadog, which was renamed 'Rockferry' for the occasion. According to Duffy, "The album took nearly four years to make. We had to hire cheap, tiny studios and sometimes there would be three-week periods between writing and recording." Bernard Butler, who was not initially paid, produced four songs for the album, including the single "Rockferry". The singles "Mercy" and "Stepping Stone" were co-written and produced by Steve Booker, and the third single "Warwick Avenue", by Jimmy Hogarth and Eg White. Duffy released the debut limited-edition single "Rockferry" in November 2007; it was followed by "Mercy", produced and co-written by Steve Booker, which went straight to number one. "Mercy" was the last song written for the album. The single was physically released on 25 February 2008. She said that both "Mercy" and "Stepping Stone" are autobiographical; "Mercy" is about "sexual liberty" and "not doing something somebody else wants you to do", and "Stepping Stone" is about not expressing her feelings to a person she fell in love with. "Warwick Avenue" was the second single released from the album. The song occurred when Duffy, then 19 years old, was familiarising herself with the London Underground and accidentally found herself at the Warwick Avenue tube station. The following day the song "just sort of came out". At first the video for the song was meant to be an elaborate production, but ended up a tearful head shot in a taxi cab with Duffy's mascara smudging. Duffy has said "That's as close as I'm ever going to get to doing a performance that's real in a video."
By May, "Mercy" was a staple on VH1 and a hot Adult Contemporary radio hit and had been featured in the season finale of the American television medical drama Grey's Anatomy as well as being on the soundtrack album for Sex and the City: The Movie. A remix of "Mercy", featuring rap artist The Game, was released on 10 May. On 13 May, Rockferry was released in the United States to positive reviews. The album's low cost of production reaped Duffy substantial financial benefits. Despite her album's success in the United States, she was quoted as saying "I don't like how big American stars consider themselves an exception from humanity". In November 2008, the single "Rain on Your Parade", produced and co-written by Steve Booker, was released. The song was first released on download sales only on 10 November 2008, before being released physically on 17 November 2008. Duffy describes this as "a big, disco-y dance song". It entered the UK Singles Chart at number twenty-two before rising to a peak of fifteen the following week. The track was included on the deluxe edition of Rockferry. At the 2008 MOJO Awards, Duffy won the "Song of the Year" award for "Mercy" and was nominated also for "Album of the Year" and "Breakthrough Act". These three nominations were the largest number of nominations for any one act. She also received a 2008 Q Award in the category of Breakthrough Act, a nomination for the Q category of Best Track for "Mercy", a Music of Black Origin Award nomination for Best UK Female. At the MTV Europe Music Awards, she received nominations in the categories of Album of the Year, Most Addictive Track, and New Act. She performed at the EMA show.