Duffy biography
Aimée Ann Duffy (born 23 June 1984), better known by her stage name Duffy, is a Welsh singer-songwriter. Her 2008 debut album Rockferry entered the UK Album Chart at number one. It was the best selling album in the United Kingdom in 2008 with 1.68 million copies sold. The album was certified several times Platinum and sold over 6 million copies worldwide, spawning the hits "Mercy" and "Warwick Avenue". With "Mercy", Duffy became the first Welsh female in 25 years to achieve number-one on the UK Singles Chart.
In 2009, she won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album for Rockferry, and she was nominated for two other Grammy awards. In 2009 she won three BRIT Awards, British Breakthrough, Best Female Solo and Best British Album.
Duffy concluded recording sessions for her second album in January 2010.
Duffy was born in Bangor, Gwynedd and raised in Nefyn on the LlÅ·n Peninsula, in Gwynedd, North Wales, with her twin sister, Katy Ann, and older sister Kelly. She grew up speaking Welsh as her mother tongue. Duffy's parents divorced when she was ten and she moved to Pembrokeshire with her mother and sisters. She dropped her first name, Aimée, calling herself Duffy both professionally and personally.
Duffy's early introduction to soul music and inspiration to get into the music industry occurred while watching Whoopi Goldberg's performance in the movie Sister Act. It is known that Duffy did not hold a large record collection in her youth, instead being inspired by her father's videotapes of the 1960s television rock show, Ready Steady Go! Duffy was interested in music from an early age, beginning to sing at age six, carrying a notebook in which she filled with scribbled lyrics. Despite this, she was later asked to leave her school choir because her voice was "too big" and she "didn't fit in."
In 1998 (aged thirteen), Duffy was briefly put in a police safe house when authorities uncovered a plot by her stepfather's ex-wife to pay a hitman £3000 to kill her stepfather, identified as 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 magazine and The Sun. A 1998 article in the Daily Mirror, another British tabloid, quotes a man identified as Philip Smith describing similar circumstances, though the stepdaughter's name is spelled Aimy - not Aimée - and the surname Duffy is not mentioned. Duffy describes living in the safe house as a dog eat dog, claustrophobic and isolating experience. At age fifteen she ran away back to her father's house 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.
« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 next » Biography from 
, the free encyclopedia.
It may not have been reviewed by a professional editor, and recent changes may not show up straight away. See the latest version of this article. Used under licence. Subject to disclaimers.