Duffy

Duffy was born Aimée Anne Duffy on 23 June 1984, a Welsh singer from Bangor with a voice that seemed to arrive fully formed from another decade: husky, soulful, a little bit ache and a little bit sass. Her debut album, Rockferry, landed in 2008 and topped the UK Albums Chart, and its lead single, "Mercy", went to number one in the UK and in several other countries, a stomping, finger-snapping blast of retro soul that was impossible to ignore that year.

The awards followed. In 2009 Rockferry won the Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Album, and she was nominated for Best New Artist too, while the Brit Awards gave her British Breakthrough, Best British Female and Best British Album. She moved into acting in 2010 with a first film role in Patagonia, the same year her second album, Endlessly, came out.

Then, in 2011, she vanished from public life, and her music and scheduled shows were cancelled. She resurfaced only briefly, appearing in the 2015 film Legend and contributing three songs to its soundtrack, and has not performed since. In 2020 she said that her disappearance had been due to her having experienced abduction and rape.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.