The most hotly anticipated album release of 2008 comes not from someone rammed into the collective consciousness by their media ubiquity. Duffy is an unknown quantity at this point, having performed but a small number of gigs, mostly in support of The Magic Numbers, and having only just begun to be seen on TV, most notably with recent appearances on Jools Holland's Later and New Year Hootenanny.

Guileless and beguiling at the same time, and blessed with effortless Motown and Stax chops, 23-year old Duffy’s homegrown style has taken her homeland by storm. From out of nowhere, she was tipped for success by 150 of the UK’s most knowledgeable and influential music critics and broadcasters, landing the number 2 spot in the BBC’s Top 10 Sound of 2008 poll. Journalists have unanimously compared her to the greatest British female pop singer who ever lived – as The Standard proclaimed, “Her once-heard-never-forgotten voice incorporates the aristocratic pain of Dusty Springfield.” Tastemakers on this side of the pond second that emotion – the Los Angeles Times calls Duffy “[the] female Otis Redding”; while SPIN magazine included her in its “One to Watch” issue (February).

From out of nowhere, Duffy has blown away London’s hype-driven music machinery like a gust of fresh air. She was born and raised in the tiny Welsh village of Nefyn (population 2,550 at last census) a place too remote to be driven by style wars or opposing music factions; the nearest record store was a bus ride away and only stocked the Top 40. Isolated, her musical muse was immaculately conceived and soulfully nurtured. Opting out of college, she worked as a waitress, sang in a bar, and cobbled out some demo recordings, some of which found their way to Jeanette Lee, noted founder and partner of the Rough Trade record label and manage¬ment company. She recognized Duffy’s huge potential, encouraged her to write her own material, put her in the studio with like-minded co-writers/producers, and signed her to A&M/Polydor UK.

Duffy was born and spent her childhood years in the north Wales coastal community of Nefyn, a place too remote to be driven by style wars or opposing music factions (the nearest record counter was a bus ride away and only stocked the Top 40). The upbringing she describes is one in which everyone had to rub along together, making do and mending, accepting each other and their tastes without prejudice.

Having no CD collection of her own, her first real musical memory is of walking into the kitchen unannounced to find her mother and stepfather dancing to Rod Stewart. The first steps she took towards defining her own personal identity came when she borrowed one of her dad's VHS tapes of the ‘60s TV show ‘Ready, Steady, Go!'. "It had The Beatles, the Stones, the Walker Brothers, Sandie Shaw and Millie singing ‘My Boy Lollipop'. So sexy and exciting! I played it again and again until finally it disintegrated."

Says former Suede guitarist and record producer Bernard Butler of this artlessness, "Duffy managed to grow up without any concept of what was cool or current, what she should or shouldn't like, how to behave or even how to sing. For her, coming to London at all was the stuff of fairytales."

"And to come here to write songs with some random bloke who'd been recommended to her, me? It meant taking two buses and then two trains and took all day. Then she'd do the same in reverse to get home, playing the music she'd just made to old ladies she encountered on the journey. It's hard for cynical music industry types to get their heads around just how far removed she was from our world, geographically and in every other way. But what you've got as a result is someone who acts and sings completely and unselfconsciously from the heart. That's a rare and magical thing."

Butler was introduced to Duffy by Rough Trade's Jeannette Lee who, in August 2004 and after hearing demos recorded in this or that mate's home, became the singer's mentor and manager. For Duffy, to have not just a friend but also point of both safety and reference in the strange new world she found herself in was crucial to her own musical development and sense of self.

"People keep saying to me, ‘You've made a great record' but I can't take that in because I didn't do it on my own. Jeannette and I made Rockferry together and she's been with me every step of the way, broadening my horizons, introducing me to people I can trust." Butler was just one of them: having written the glorious, chorus-free, utterly hypnotic Rockferry together at the beginning of the project, they then worked on a further three of the ten tracks on what is already being talked about as 2008's most important debut release. Jimmy Hogarth & Steve Booker are the other collaborators on this classic-in-waiting.

What you'll find instead is irrefutable evidence of a significant new talent, and one that has developed in splendid isolation, not in reaction to market forces or the input of focus groups and industry experts. Duffy is the real, unspoiled original deal. "People keep asking me where my voice comes from and the fact is I don't know," says the brightest new star of 2008. "Why are your eyes the colour they are? It's no answer at all but it's the only one I have."