Young Welsh singer Duffy, whose debut album ROCKFERRY (already platinum in the UK), has captivated Britain with her current single "Mercy" for 3 weeks at #1 in the UK national chart. What can you expect to hear? The title track and album opener, as atmospheric, slow-building and idiosyncratic a song as you could hope for, leads into a collection of original material that some might call retro in feel (those Dusty flavours, that girl group vibe) but which Duffy herself prefers to identify as classic. You'll find arrangements as sparsely effective as those against which Dionne Warwick told her Bacharach & David-wrought tales of heartbreak in the early 1960s. You'll find lush choruses and swooning hooks (as perfected by the late Miss Springfield and various distinguished others). But this is far from pastiche.

Duffy's sound is both nostalgic and timeless. "I write my songs acapella and build it up from there, which is where we get the retro sound. Old music was always recorded on a 4-track, so it had to be melody-led. When we finished the demos, we took them back to the original co-writers. It would've been easy to get some hot-shot American producer, but we kept it organic." Recorded straight to tape, the album has a charisma all its own. Highlights include the defiantly catchy "Mercy," - haunted by the ghost of Motown - "Warwick Avenue" with its white-knuckle grip and the razor-sharp hook of "Serious." Rockferry was recorded in England with ex-Suede guitarist turned record producer Bernard Butler, Jimmy Hogarth and Steve Booker.

Show Dates:
• Aug 8th at All Points West, NJ | Details



"Mercy"