Let�s font it: Calling Duffy the next Amy Winehouse isn�t much of a compliment.
While Winehouse struggles with do drugs addiction, Britain�s latest white soul sensation is into clean surviving. Ten years ago, the Wales-born Aimee Duffy was placed in a safe home when police learned her stepdad�s alcoholic ex had hired a hit man to kill him. The murder plot was foiled, but witnessing that sort of madness has kept Duffy, who ditched her showtime name five-spot years ago, scared straight.
The only comparison that holds water is between the delectable soul-pop of Winehouse�s �Back to Black� and that of Duffy�s major label debut, �Rockferry,� which brings her to the Wilbur Theatre tomorrow nox for her Boston premiere. But regular then, Winehouse�s retro-soul is steeped in reggae, ska, beat-box and jazz, patch Duffy�s sound is considerably less splintered.
We caught up with 24-year-old Duffy during a earphone call from London.
Boston Herald: Hip-hop babe Estelle mouthed off around you and other white River soul singers in the British entreat not long ago, but then you sang at Harlem�s Apollo Theater - a classical soul locale. Was that vindicating?
Duffy: I felt no sense of judgment in that room. It was one of the most spectacular moments in my life, really. No one can ever so take that away from me. When the lights went up and the show started, I thought process, �This is how it�s meant to be.� I didn�t put forbidden this record to then sit endorse and be judged. The bottom line is, you can�t help what colouring material you�re innate; every person has emotion, and that�s what soul music is - emotion.
BH: Rumor has it that a game plan existed to groom you and your CD to create a retro sound; is there whatever truth to this?
Duffy: Not really, no. And I don�t often like the word �retro� - I�m not sure what that is, actually. I made loads of songs over three and a half years, and at the end of the recording process, these are the ones that fit together best. I felt wish a curator for an art gallery.
BH: Coming from humble beginnings, does success feel strange?
Duffy: Success is very personal to me. I felt a degree of success in making a quaker cry when I played her one of my songs, it was such a real emotional response. The roost is all dollars, dates and diaries.
BH: Is it unnerving to be repeatedly compared to a isaac Bashevis Singer who, contempt being talented, is view of as a train wreck in progress?
Duffy: It�s like anything else. A young male child may crash his elevator car somewhere or a baby dies throttling, but you can�t waste energy bedevilment if you�ll meet the same fate because of some similarity between you and them. We have control over our have lives and what we do with them, merely bad decisions can rob us of those very freedoms. I�ve seen it happen to other people. You instruct from watching.
BH: What�s succeeding for Duffy? Do you feel the pressure of expectation?
Duffy: Plans fail. It�s best to just go with what�s in front of you. Life has a funny way of making us feel like we get to adhere to rules and schedules - simply all that�s just etiquette and social boundaries. I can�t business organisation myself with what anyone expects of me. I�ve got to just listen to my heart.
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