Duffy

I wouldn’t expect to go a bundle on the runner up of Welsh Pop Idol and I’m also a bit suspicious of singers who can only manage one name, Brazilian footballer style. (Mind you that would be quite a line up...Madonna, Kylie, Gabrielle, Adele ...Sonia).

I’m also a bit suspicious because the hype machine does seem to be gearing up behind Duffy. She came second (behind Adele...again) in a 6 Music “Singers most likely to” poll. (Possibly not the pervier “Most likely to...." poll that I’ve been running). I’m ready to suspend the scepticism though because she’s aiming to do exactly the kind of cinematic 60’s soul pop that I’m partial to. Dusty Springfield. Nancy Sinatra etc.

The video for debut single Rockferry made me think of my holidays and Julie Christie in Billy Liar. Sold!

Filmed around Porthmadog (Duffy grew up on the Llyn peninsular), it's a leaving town/leaving you kind of song, with lots of shots of railway lines, tea drinking, waiting on platforms, railings being aimlessly pinged and the whole thing is as 60's as the Prisoner style piping on her jacket.

It's also got a shot of Cob Records with Duffy walking past with a suitcase. Is the girl leaving town or going record shopping?

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=zlcRRnbqS8Y

New single Mercy uses all the stock soul phrases. And just how many songs have talked about begging for mercy, release me etc and have expressed bafflement at the power and quality of the good loving that is on offer? Loads, but there's always room for one more.

Duffy's version of it has the line "I don't know what you do but you do it well. You've got me under your spell." Bingo. Another soul cliche. It's all done with a lot of love though and the video features Dusty style hand waving and Northern Soul dancing. So yes it's retro! But yes I like it a lot.

The only concession to a more modern sound is the elastic band twang of the intro and the spoken words that you can just hear under both the intro and the middle 8 which is the kind of thing All Saints would have done.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KE2orthS3TQ&feature=user

There's some footage of Warwick Avenue from Jools Holland last year, which has a bit more of a Gladys Knight style soulful sweep and the really good line "You think you're lovin' but you don’t love me".

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=MkkmQNA_aRs

The album is due out in March. I'm hoping that the fact that Duffy is managed by Jeanette Lee from Rough Trade (former “non musical member” of Public Image) and that Bernard Butler has been involved in some of the song writing is going to stop it from being (admittedly) top class karaoke.

Because she does sound great and looks the part but the songs are (to my ears) very close to their source material. After all what made Bernard Butler and David McAlmont’s Glam plastic soul records so interesting was that they shuffled their sources better.

The trick is to make a modern record that invokes the spirit of an older style. And you don’t need to be coy about it. You do need great big hits! There’s a quote from Stax songwriter Dave Porter along the lines of “Don’t talk to me about the records that didn’t sell. Talk to me about Soul Man.”

Although I'm naturally drawn to the obscure b-side, there have been some fantastic modern records that have used an obvious and infectious love of those old soul records. Songs like TLC’s Waterfalls (uses an Al Green /Teenie Hodges guitar style), Bouncy Beyonce’s Crazy In Love (partly Chi-lites but mostly big hair and hot pants) or Crazy by Gnarls Berkley.

On a similar old meets new there’s Candie Payne’s terrific single One More Chance. Image wise she’s giving it the full Audrey Hepburn, and there's a Mark Ronson remix too. It's Sandie Shaw, Beach Boys and bells and it's a modern re-creation of a sound rather than a copy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE7RBl2YfOg&feature=related

One of the things that made Amy Winehouse interesting was the arrangements that Mark Ronson brought to her second album. The Motown feel to tracks like Tears Dry On Their Own or Addicted. Or the girl group doomed romanticism of tracks like Back to Black.

So while the strings gave it a Shangri-Las feel, there were also the Hip Hop shuffling drums and the fact that Winehouse wasn’t singing about the 60’s girl group staple of running away with a a bad boy on a motorbike who is also a bit of a rebel. (Apparently the parents don't understand). All powered by the brass section from Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings. A bona fide proper soul revue style band fronted by a 50 year old ex Rikers Island prison warder.

Thankfully 23 year old Duffy is more River Island than Rikers Island