The Original "Duffy News"

'Something Beautiful' Song - shared by Duffy during UK Lockdown

2021-02-28T14:44:00.003-08:00

Duffy wrote an instagram message to Jo Whiley, who played the new song on Radio 2 on March 19th: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=861565174286694

Written By Simon Dine & Duffy Produced by Simon Dine

"Something Beautiful" You bring me something beautiful You bring me something divine, oh You bring me, bring me A new kind of wonderful Bring me it all But I, I Can't take the first steps to your love So it leaves me only dreaming Of something beautiful You show me what I want You show me, show me it all at once So show me, show me a way to fix my mistakes Show me this ain't the greatest risk I ever take Because I, I Can't take the first steps to your love So it leaves me only dreaming Of something beautiful I don't even know Why I love you so I don't even know why That I, I Can't take the first steps to your love It leaves me only dreaming Of something beautiful Beautiful

https://www.stereogum.com/2077344/duffy-something-beautiful/music/

Here’s Duffy’s full Instagram message to Jo Whiley:

Hi Jo (Whiley)
Hope you are well and keeping safe.
Wanted to send you this to play on the radio, if you want.
You may have read the words I wrote a few weeks back, I do feel freer.
Tried to follow up with a spoken interview, but it’s harder than I thought, I will follow up in writing soon.
Universal Music & no one knows I am doing this. They won’t be mad, they are lovely people.
So here’s a song … here’s “Something Beautiful”. It’s just something for you to play people on radio during these troubling times, if you like the song of course. If it lifts spirits.
I don’t plan to release it, I just thought a little something might be nice for people if they are at home, on lockdown.
Duffy x

Duffy in her own words.....

2021-02-28T14:02:00.003-08:00

Duffy published these words on 5th April 2020 on website https://www.duffywords.com/....

The 5th House

By Duffy

It troubles me that this story contains sorrow, when so many need the opposite of that at this time. I can only hope that my words serve as a momentary distraction or maybe even some comfort that one can come out of darkness.

We are in troubling times, where we’ve not seen such national and global worry since World War II. Now, it’s more important than ever to think about the impact we have on each other.

There will be great change to come from our shared crisis, a renewed understanding and appreciation of freedom and human connection. But nothing comforts loss, only time.

I’m not an academic or public speaker but I have to mention our current crisis. These are tragic days. Like you I worry about relatives, loved ones and colleagues. Our tears are shared. The only cure now is prevention, by staying in and allowing the frontline workers to cope.

I could have decided to not release further words during these times, I don’t think there is ever a right time, since promising to follow up in due course.

If you are reading this, I must warn you it contains information some may find upsetting. This story is not going anywhere, it will remain online, if you are not able to take on someone else’s suffering or the recounting of such, I recommend you do not read on.

For me, in these hours, I recall the words of Maya Angelou who once said “there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you”, and I share mine with you today.

I posted the words I wrote, a few weeks ago, because I was tired of hiding. Never feeling free or burden free. I had become enmeshed with my story like a dark secret. It made me alone and feel alone.

What is also hard to explain is that, in hiding, in not talking, I was allowing the rape to become a companion. Me and it living in my being, I no longer wanted to feel that intimacy with it, a decade of that intimacy has been destructive. I had to set myself free. I have been hurt and it would have been dangerous to talk from that hurt place in the past, prior to feeling ready.

Unable to do what I am doing today, previously, I also considered and explored human rights laws to change my name off public record and disappear to another country and maybe become a florist or something, so that I could put the past behind with a new life.

Because, although I was almost unfindable, I daydreamed of having a different haircut, a new name, a boyfriend, and become completely forever forgotten. As time went on it then became about realising, I can’t keep hiding, as thrilling as coffee in Paris seems.

Since the incident I experienced happened, it was upsetting to think of talking openly, frightening. Seasons would pass and come and go and I would be further removed from where I once was, every year. The longer I left it, the less I could see an image in my mind, of something I recognised that I could reach back to. That’s why I, at times, would admit defeat and think I can’t ever talk and face it. So, I should just keep disappearing, turning the lights off in my life.

Having not yet established a thriving personal life, or had my own family, I would be anguished thinking if I reveal my story publicly, openly to the world, it would hinder my future romantic life. This is not exactly the advert I wanted before meeting the love of my life.

I would also worry about coming back to music and the risk of constantly facing the question of “what happened”, “where did you disappear to”, “why did you vanish”, “what have you been up to for so many years”.

I could not imagine fabricating some story, that I had been rowing across the world’s seas, I would have had to lie, and I couldn’t lie. So, between fears of not being able to emotionally withstand speaking, not being able to lie, and concerns of inheriting a stigma that could affect my future personal life, I would decide to not speak at all, remain vanished, or to daydream of reinventing myself forever.

I thought the public disclosure of my story would utterly destroy my life, emotionally, while hiding my story was destroying my life so much more. So, I just have to be strong and disclose it, and face all my fears head on. I’ve come to realise I can’t erase myself, I live in my being, so I have to be completely honest and have faith in the outcome.

I never knew if I would get to the place of being able to do this, I am grateful to get here. Not everyone has the privilege of being able to talk, such as I am doing today, stories much more heinous and sorrowful, more inhumane than mine, go untold every day.

All of our lives have immense meaning and value, and when we come to really realise nothing matters but humanity, we begin to really see each other, by the tragedies and joys we all share. Our smiles and our tears are what make us all the same.

And while we are observing a great amount of suffering and loss in our world, in what seems like a battle that cannot be won, it compels us to truly appreciate the gift of life, and the gift of love, and the values that matter the most.

I have been very warned by some I know not to tell you what I am about to tell you. Some alluded that I would pretty much be finished in whatever chances I have to make music publicly again, some have said I would be scorned by the public, another said I would be called selfish that the rapist is still at large.

It has served to delay my talking by weeks, and me just lying in bed looking at the ceiling trying to find meaning. I take my personal freedom over any amount of stones that can be thrown at me. If I destroy my future, I do it to honour my past.

Rape stripped me of my human rights, to experience a life with autonomy from fear. It has already stolen one third my of life. Deep down I do know it would have been a shame and done such an immense disservice, to my existence, to just delete myself and forget what I had experienced in music publicly.

It was also not just my burden, so many others lived with the big question too of “what happened”. The record label, live agents, promoters, publicists, musicians, stylists, hairdressers, make-up, lighting, production, crew, people I would meet, people I once knew. No one, utterly no one, knew what happened. It kept me removed from those I could actually trust. Mostly I did not want to trouble anyone else with what I had experienced.

The final catalyst of wanting to talk was unusual I think, what really finally made me go “I just can’t bear the weight of this anymore”. It was so simple but so profound, what would be the catalyst to make me un-trap myself.

It was being told by a male, I had come to know and really like as a friend, that “most men would run a mile if they knew you were raped”. I crumbled. I felt very hurt for a few days and reflected a lot and I thought, one night, like an epiphany, that the knowledge of my truth 'makes me no less lovable’. The dream of love did die, I finally realised it didn’t need to. And just like a light came on I realised ‘I know what it is to hurt, therefore I know what it is to be human’.

Please skip the next twenty lines if you do not want to read the exact account of the kidnapping.

It was my birthday, I was drugged at a restaurant, I was drugged then for four weeks and travelled to a foreign country. I can’t remember getting on the plane and came round in the back of a travelling vehicle. I was put into a hotel room and the perpetrator returned and raped me. I remember the pain and trying to stay conscious in the room after it happened. I was stuck with him for another day, he didn’t look at me, I was to walk behind him, I was somewhat conscious and withdrawn. I could have been disposed of by him. I contemplated running away to the neighbouring city or town, as he slept, but had no cash and I was afraid he would call the police on me, for running away, and maybe they would track me down as a missing person. I do not know how I had the strength to endure those days, I did feel the presence of something that helped me stay alive. I flew back with him, I stayed calm and as normal as someone could in a situation like that, and when I got home, I sat, dazed, like a zombie. I knew my life was in immediate danger, he made veiled confessions of wanting to kill me. With what little strength I had, my instinct was to then run, to run and find somewhere to live that he could not find.

The perpetrator drugged me in my own home in the four weeks, I do not know if he raped me there during that time, I only remember coming round in the car in the foreign country and the escape that would happen by me fleeing in the days following that. I do not know why I was not drugged overseas; it leads me to think I was given a class A drug and he could not travel with it.

After it happened, someone I knew came to my house and saw me on my balcony staring into space, wrapped in a blanket. I cannot remember getting home. The person said I was yellow in colour and I was like a dead person. They were obviously frightened but did not want to interfere, they had never seen anything like it.

Thereafter, it didn’t feel safe to go to the police. I felt if anything went wrong, I would be dead, and he would have killed me. I could not risk being mishandled or it being all over the news during my danger. I really had to follow what instincts I had. I have told two female police officers, during different threatening incidents in the past decade, it is on record.

And as I grieved what 'I must have done to invite this into my life', I read something that said, “in the end, it’s never between them and you, it’s always between them and God”. That helped me a lot in the absence of justice.

Once someone threatened to ‘out' my story and I had to tell a female police officer what information the person held about me, and why the blackmail was so frightening. The second incident was when three men tried to enter my house as intruders, I told the second female officer about the rape then also. The identity of the rapist should be only handled by the police, and that is between me and them.

The first person I ever told was a psychologist, months later, a leading expert in the UK in complex trauma and sexual violence. I have no idea how I was so lucky to find her all those years ago, her beautiful blue eyes, pink sofa, huge library, amazing brain and skill. Without her I may not have made it through. I was high risk of suicide in the aftermath. She got to know me, saw me as a person, learned about me and navigated me. She did it very gently. I could not look her in the eyes for the first eight or so sessions, eye contact was something I struggled with. The thought of recovering was almost impossible.

In the aftermath I would not see someone, a physical soul, for sometimes weeks and weeks and weeks at a time, remaining alone. I would take off my pyjamas and throw them in the fire and put on another set. My hair would get so knotted from not brushing it, as I grieved, I cut it all off.

I am sharing this because we are living in a hurting world and I am no longer ashamed that something deeply hurt me, anymore. I believe that if you speak from the heart within you, the heart within others will answer. As dark as my story is, I do speak from my heart, for my life, and for the life of others, whom have suffered the same.

I have no shame in telling you either I had spent almost ten years completely alone, and it still burns my heart to write it. I owe it to myself to say it, I feel obliged to explain how challenging recovering truly was, and to finally disclose it. I hope it comforts you to feel less ashamed, if you feel alone.

After the rape and kidnaping I had a handful of romantic experiences and each one would “love bomb” me and want the person on the album cover, while I was just a person hurt. It was futile.

You may wonder where was my family? Those who wanted to help - were just too far away. The toll of me hiding, this last decade, also meant I was estranged from all. What happened was not only a betrayal to me, to my life, a violence that nearly killed me, it stole a lot from other people too. I was just not the same person for so long. Rape is like living murder, you are alive, but dead. All I can say is it took an extremely long time, sometimes feeling never ending, to reclaim the shattered pieces of me.

This may hit a nerve with you reading this because I know you are all isolated at this time. I should probably elaborate on how I survived that seclusion, further down this piece.

I promise you, I know a pain, to the guts of all my being and I cannot let it cloud my life anymore. I now stand in all of me. But I do not want your pity. I’m telling you all this to put my wounds to the light where the dark can no longer keep me. I would not be telling you the account of my experiences if I did not now know true healing.

I’m not proud of my story, I mourned wishing I had been dealt another hand, but it happened, and I have come to terms with it.

It took so long for me to speak because after I was raped and held captive, I fled. I moved five times in the immediate three years after, never feeling safe from the rapist, I was on the run for so long. I found somewhere to live, the 5th house, it was not as confined as the other houses, where I grieved silently, in townhouses or apartments. This place I would spend solitary years to find the stability to recover, I had stopped running and relocating. I felt he could not find me in the 5th house, I felt safe. I feel safe now.

When the ordeal happened, it destabilised me so severely, it took years and years, around 90,000 hours. I sometimes didn’t know how I could make it through, it was hard and almost impossible. But I got here, as will you. Hallelujah.

I came back to Wales recently, I stood and looked at the sea and felt a part of me breathe again, I had distanced myself from it all. Then the catalyst I mentioned, being told “most men would run a mile”, made me face the fear of it not hindering my romantic life. Ironically rape is not only a sexual assault, it’s a brain injury … and although I may sometimes get frightened still, it has nothing to do with love.

Finally, the realisation that very thing that hurt me, will become the very thing that heals me. I faced a deeply inhumane experience; only humanity can heal that.

Ostracization and isolation is known to be a form of torture. If anyone would have told me I would share my times of isolation, with a nation isolated, I would never have believed them.

What I can share though, at this time, during this shared experience is the science. The brain's ‘dorsal anterior cingulate cortex’, which registers physical pain, is activated when we are isolated.

Knowing the mind’s science enables you to manage it. And isolation is a small price to pay for saving lives, therefore we must be strong in the face of it. This demands us all, as one, to act for each other; never has mindfulness been so vital as it is now.

If you are reading this and are sad my encouragement to you is that … to know pain, you must first know how to love. Only the absence of love causes pain. So, go find it. Seek love in everything, even in a teacup.

There is also a real science to being grateful. Research shows that gratitude can heal your body, mind, and those you are grateful to. So, by being thankful, for what you do have, and the selfless acts of others during this time, lifts you and them.

And of talking of community and human thoughtfulness, some of you really helped me in real time when you wrote comments beneath the original statement I wrote. You put “do not be afraid to run for cover”, another said “breathe, just breathe” as I was worried about what I had done, when it went so quickly to the news, as I could not sleep some nights.

One of you wrote “I feel you will always be protected from here” I agreed, I knew what you meant. I faced my greatest life lesson to speak.

Before our current crisis people offered me their homes, to come and have food with them, their telephone numbers and personal stories. It’s been very intimate to be with those comments, that people wrote, and read them. And this is what defines the power of people, of kindness, and humanity. I did not expect any kind of reaction similar to the volume of what was seen. Thank you. I did not speak to seek friends, but the kindness was an emotional experience for me.

I also received messages, from others whom were sexually abused and raped, of all ages and races and places and genders. I want you to know I saw and read them. I read every word, and your story lives on in me.

If you saw the messages I have received, on Instagram, from young males whom have been raped, women whose cases were adjourned, lives that have been stolen in violence. One young man said, “I will never be able to be liberated like you” (from rape). He cannot walk the streets of his home, afraid. This is a weapon of war. I hope they too can find a way to be liberated in their own way, as I am finding mine.

Anyone cynical about what I am doing- please don’t be. I have no control where my words travelled or will travel. I speak as a human being, from a remote town, overlooking the sea, in the middle of nowhere. This is not fireworks and champagne for me. Nobody who reveals such a wound feels elated, only peace.

And so, what about music from here maybe you ask? When I sing, I feel like a bird. But it’s not what this is directly about. I’m doing this to be freed, for all of me to be freed. What follows remains to be seen.

I also won’t be doing any more unannounced statements on this. As liberating it’s been to finally speak and to finally sing, albeit on radio, I will now return to quietness. I thank Jo Whiley for letting me share a song on radio, during these times. Meant a lot to me.

I know this much though, I owe it to myself to release a body of work someday, though I very much doubt I will ever be the person people once knew. My music will be measured on the merit of its quality and this story will be something I experienced and not something that describes me.

And as for you … They do say nothing worthwhile came without sacrifice, your personal actions, decisiveness and commitment, is making the difference now. As we come together, we see results, and there is just so much hope to take from that.

And I really don’t know what’s next for me. I would like to experience me being who I really am, for the first time, privately. To feel a peace that I have been, until now, only half feeling.

I ask myself now, as I write this … what makes me feel more beautiful, more hopeful and more at peace? So, if I do indeed press SEND and put this online, I hope it brings me the smile in my eyes, the light in my life, that has been absent for just so long.

I can now leave this decade behind. Where the past belongs. Hopefully no more “what happened to Duffy" questions, now you know… and I am free.

© Duffy
5th April 2020

https://www.duffywords.com/

New Music from Duffy!!!!!!

2015-09-15T09:23:00.004-07:00

Click here to buy the new single "Whole Lot Of Love" by Duffy, plus B side "Dear Heart"

15 Sep: NOW DUFFY’S MAKING AN UNUSUAL COMEBACK

2015-09-15T03:46:00.000-07:00

Duffy’s career has become a cautionary tale for young performers entering the music business.

In March 2008, she released her debut album, Rockferry, on A&M in the UK and Mercury in the US.

A commercial triumph, featuring tracks co-written by the likes of Steve Booker, Bernard Butler and Eg White, it won the Welsh artist a Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Album and three BRIT Awards.

Backed by heavy international radio play, lead single Mercy was a No.1 in ten territories, including the UK, Germany, The Netherlands and Norway.

Rockferry was the bestselling album of 2008 in the UK, where it shifted more than 1.7m copies – beating the likes of Take That’s Circus, Rihanna’s Good Girl Gone Bad and Leona Lewis’s Spirit. And it was the fourth biggest-selling LP around the world that year, with 4.5m sales.

To date, it’s sold more than 6.5m copies globally, with more than 2m in the UK alone.

Those figures trounced the debut album from a certain Adele Adkins, whose 19 – issued in January 2008 – sold less than 500,000 in the UK that year.

But the music biz is a cruel mistress, as Duffy can testify better than anyone.

The artist made a famous career misstep in early 2009, appearing in a Diet Coke ad that put her – and her unique vocal styling – front and centre of a £35m campaign.

The TV ad, made by agency Mother, met with a cruel reaction from critics and the public.

Although suggestions it ‘ruined Duffy’s career’ may be a little OTT, it certainly put a puncture in her ascent – and carries a disastrous reputation to this day…

One branding agency expert tells MBW: “Duffy’s Diet Coke ad remains the ‘how notto…’ standard for anyone involved with bringing together brands and artists.

“It made all the no-nos: over-exposing an artist, an unnatural fit, no explanation as to why the act and the brand made sense together…

“But what everyone’s probably still too scared to admit is that the reaction was actually a product of its time. Six years ago, you had to tread so carefully as an artist to avoid ‘sell-out’ accusations.

“These days artist branding deals are so common – we’re used to them.”

“THE DUFFY DIET COKE AD PROBABLY WOULDN’T CAUSE ANYWHERE NEAR THE OUTRAGE TODAY THAT IT DID IN 2009.”

MBW SOURCE

So would Duffy get away with it now?

“Look, it still makes lots of mistakes and it’s hard to watch.

“But I don’t think that in 2015 it probably would cause anywhere near the outrage and ridicule that it did at the time. Not that I want my name attached to that statement!”

Surrounded by predictions of global superstardom in the run-up to her second album, 2010’s Endlessly, Duffy split with much of the industry team that had helped forge Rockferry’s success.

Crucially, that included her manager (and Rough Trade co-founder) Jeannette Lee, who parted ways with Duffy months before Endlessly arrived.

The album stiffed to a shocking degree. Even though it scraped into the UK Top 10, it sold less than a tenth of Rockferry’s numbers.

In contrast to Mercy – the unstoppable global smash from Rockferry – Endlessly’s lead single, Well, Well, Well, couldn’t even manage an entry in the Official UK Top 40.

No more singles were issued from the project. Promotion was cut back.

Duffy didn’t release any original material in the five years that followed.

Her pop career appeared to be over.

Until that is, last week.

On Friday, Duffy quietly released her first single in half a decade – Whole Lot Of Love – as part of the soundtrack to Tom Hardy-starring British gangster movie Legend.

As well as performing as singer Timi Yuro in the film, Duffy has recorded three original tracks for the OST, including Are You Sure? and Make The World Go Away.

There’s an extra layer of industry intrigue to her return too: Duffy’s old record company at Universal clearly hasn’t given up on the artist, but is deliberately re-introducing her to the public in an unusual manner.

According to the CEO of Universal parent Vivendi, Arnaud de Puyfontaine, Duffy’s return on Universal Music Catalogue (UMC) is the product of a new drive for cross-media collaboration.

The company responsible for producing Legend, StudioCanal, is also owned by Vivendi, and has agreed to give UMG artists, especially Duffy, the chance to shine in their picture.

“UMG and StudioCanal are actively working together on other soundtrack albums,” says de Puyfontaine.

“UMG AND STUDIOCANAL ARE ACTIVELY WORKING TOGETHER ON OTHER SOUNDTRACK ALBUMS.”

ARNAUD DE PUYFONTAINE, VIVENDI

“UMG will soon be sharing a joint office with Canal+ in the Ivory Coast [to] reinforce its presence in Africa after the broadcast of UMG’s Island Africa Talent show on the Canal+ A+ channel last year.

“It’s an additional step in the co-operation between our two businesses.”

That co-operation has provided a potential lifeline for Duffy’s career, which not too long ago looked dead in the water.

The artist may find additional motivation in the fact that her comeback has arrived just as the world anticipates a new album from its biggest pop megastar.

The fortunes of Adele’s record-breaking second album were in stark contrast to those of Duffy’s Endlessly: 21 has now sold around 30m copies worldwide, with more than 14m in the US alone.

Meanwhile, in a music biz reflection of the hare and the tortoise, the lifetime sales of Adele’s debut LP, 19, have now slightly overtaken Rockferry in the UK – despite a 1.5m sales deficit at the end of 2008.

It seems a long time since the 2009 Grammys, when the Someone Like You star pipped her Welsh peer to the Best New Artist gong, and said:

“I want to thank my manager, Jonathan, and my mum – she’s in London. Everyone at Columbia, thank you, everyone at XL, thank you.

“Duffy: I love you. I think you’re amazing.”

Duffy Sings as Timi Yuro in New Movie "Legend"

2015-09-11T09:45:00.000-07:00

Duffy appears in the new movie Legend as Timi Yuro and sings two songs as Timi Yuro on the original soundtrack for the new movie.

Read about casting Duffy as Timi Yuro here.

Buy the Legend sound track cd here. The cd also contains original new song "Whole Lot Of Love" by Duffy which was released as a single with amazing B side "Dear Heart".

Listen to the 2 songs by Duffy as Timi Yuro below, Are You Sure? and Make the World Go Away.

1 HQ Photo Duffy 2015

2015-09-10T10:17:00.000-07:00

http://imagizer.imageshack.com/img540/5079/Wa5lcd.jpg

Duffy - No Frontiers (Jimmy McCarthy cover)

2014-12-19T13:21:00.000-08:00

Old Song - Fact is Fiction (2004) Duffy and Paul Eastham

2014-07-28T09:10:00.001-07:00

2014-07-28T08:51:00.001-07:00

Duffy to star and write soundtrack for movie "Secret Love" Filming Autumn 2014

2014-05-14T10:46:00.000-07:00

Secret Love - In Development by Parkland Pictures

Secret Love is a romantic drama set in 1960’s, Wales. Mel, a young vivacious woman, and Arty, a married, older man, have been having a torrid love affair for years when he suddenly dies of a heart attack. Mel, having no one to turn to with her sorrow, goes on an emotional journey to find happiness beyond her love for Arty and where she thinks she truly belongs.

Genre: Romantic Drama

Language: English

Writer/Director: Dewi Humphreys

Producer: Chantelle de Carvalho

Soundtrack: Duffy

Shooting in Wales, Autumn 2014.

Cast: Duffy

http://www.screendaily.com/news/cannes-duffy-to-star-in-romance/5071626.article

EXCLUSIVE: Duffy film, Niall Johnson rom-com on Parkland Pictures slate.

Parkland Pictures comes to Cannes with new romancesSecret Love, set to star British singer-songwriter Duffy (Duffy Jones), and Niall Johnson’s Scrum Like it Hot.

Secret Love, budgeted at $3.2m, aims to shoot in Wales this autumn. It charts the bittersweet love story between a young woman and an older, married man and her subsequent turmoil after he unexpectedly passes.

Grammy and Brit Award-winning singer Duffy, whose 2008 debut album Rockferry sold more than 7 million copies worldwide and featured hit singles Mercy and Warwick Avenue, will also compose original songs for the film and work on the soundtrack.

Duffy made her acting debut on 2010 drama Patagonia. Her music has appeared in films including An Education andBride Wars.

Director will be Dewi Humphreys (My Family), producer is Chantelle de Carvalho and writer is Emyr Humphreys.

The production is currently casting additional roles.

Rugby rom-com

Also new to Parkland’s slate is $2.3m-budgeted UK rom-com Scrum Like It Hot, also looking to shoot this autumn.

Writer-director Niall Johnson’s (Keeping Mum) script follows a self-important student, kicked-off a men’s rugby team and in debt to loan sharks, who disguises himself as a woman to get on the women’s team in order to get back on track.

Producer is Francie Von Schonfeld for Forward Pass Pictures. Cast will be announced at a later date.

“It certainly feels like there is a demand for well-written UK content at the moment, especially in the romance or romantic-comedy genre,” said John Cairns, Parkland Pictures CEO.

“These two scripts share that genuine quality, and we are very proud to be associated with two highly respected UK directors.”

The deals were negotiated by Parkland’s CEO John Cairns and International sales and acquisitions manager Pierre-Louis Manès-Murphy with producers Chantelle de Carvalho and Francie Von Schonfeld.

Duffy Covers Louis Armstrong - What a Wonderful World

2014-05-04T09:49:00.000-07:00

Duffy Covers Elvis - Love Me Tender

2014-01-31T08:54:00.000-08:00

New Duffy Photoshoot from Autumn 2013

2013-12-30T12:07:00.000-08:00

This colour one above is my fave. :-) Duffy's official website and facebook page are featuring the 2013 photoshoot.

03 Oct: Alex Bilmes Interview Facebook Bio Duffy

2013-10-05T11:05:00.000-07:00

Inventing new dreams: Duffy, 2013 from here.

Long before she was famous – before Rockferry, “Mercy”, “Warwick Avenue”, Grammys and Brits, world tours and Number Ones and millions of albums sold across the globe and not a dry eye in the house – Duffy was a waitress at a French place in cobbled Chester, in the north west of England, her first step to escaping the fishing village of Nefyn, North Wales.

It was called “Chez Jules”, the restaurant where Duffy landed in England – still is, in fact – and at the time it was run by two handsome men who called their vivacious employee “mini-Blondie”: a tiny small-town bombshell with a pile of Bardot hair covering a head full of dreams.

She lived nearby the restaurant, sharing a flat with a pair of Italian brothers who would put grappa in her morning coffee, to set her up for the day, much to their amusement. On Tuesday nights she’d sing in a local jazz club. With a modest but swelling fan base, Duffy was happy. She was living. She was 20 years old.

“I loved it!” she remembers. “You had cash in the bank. You were earning. You’d walk down the street with the world at your feet and you’d get wolf whistled. You’d feel like a million dollars.”

We’re sitting, talking, in the rustic garden of an Italian restaurant in London, on a beautiful summer’s day, sipping Prosecco. As ever Duffy is chatty, elegant, classic and sexy in a tight cashmere sweater – nowadays she is more Sophia Loren, not so Dusty Springfield.

Her hair is black, but her eyes are still ocean blue, she is bold and shy, the confusing Duffy mix of vulnerability and strength we know so well, and those blue eyes that melt your heart shine right now at the memory of this early independence: “I was free,” she says simply, her hands cupping her glass.

It wasn’t just that she felt good back then. It’s that she was in an easy position to make other people feel good, too. “You get that satisfaction as a waitress, you know,” she says. “You make people smile somehow. You look nice. You’ve got your hair and make up on, your little black skirt and your white shirt and you feel amazing. Whether it’s someone’s birthday or their anniversary, you can really make their night.” In a way, that’s why she got into music in the first place: “Because if you can make one person’s day a bit better, then that’s it.”

For all her success, the young and tender Duffy never suffered delusions of grandeur. She never sought admiration or fame for its own sake. She was the slowest overnight success in history: she’d been perfecting herself for years before she broke through – making other people’s nights, one person at a time.

But when she did make it, she really made it. Rockferry, her irresistible collection of blue-eyed pop-soul songs, released in 2008, was four years in the making, but well worth the wait. It sold 8 million albums. It was number one across Europe and America. Duffy was nominated for three Grammys, and won for Best Pop Vocal Album. She was up for four Brits and won three, including the most prestigious: Best Album. This was the stuff dreams are made on: the arrival of a superstar. That year, the sweeping strings and her utterly distinctive resonance filled the airwaves.

“Mercy” and “Warwick Avenue” were inescapable, as was that extraordinary voice, yearningly soulful: it was Duffy.

Suddenly, she’d gone from making a few people’s nights, to making many millions of people’s nights. The stages were bigger, the days were longer, the noise was louder. Duffy, alternating between joy and dismay at her new situation, found herself at a crossroads. Her circumstances were unfamiliar, and in some senses unwelcome, and Duffy retreated, returning briefly with a follow-up album, Endlessly.

It was an unlikely record, a collaboration between a freshly minted British pop star, a legendary but long dormant songwriter and producer, Albert Hammond, and an acclaimed hip-hop band, The Roots. Endlessly was a record to be proud of, heartfelt and committed. Duffy released one single from the album, “Well, Well, Well”, in November 2010, and then promptly disappeared, leaving the memory of her final appearance: plastered all over the covers of the papers, sweeping the floor at the Brit awards, like a night at the Oscars.

“I took a step back,” she says. “I thought, ‘I’m going to slow all this right down”, shrugging her little shoulder she sighs prophetically “It’s only in the silence you can hear the truth, so I had to turn down the noise.”

She had felt, she says, “Like I was losing sight of what all this was about. It all got so complex, such responsibility. I was serenading people to sleep, not running NASA. Suddenly I was a product, an enterprise, a businesswoman. But mostly I wanted to be human”.

Not so long ago, Duffy went home to Nefyn, this time ostensibly to have her photo taken on the beach where she grew up.

Standing on the sand she looked out over the headland – the same view, unchanged, that she gazed upon so many nights growing up, with what she describes now as a “crucifying longing” for escape and adventure.

“Back then that view was such a dense, flat picture,” she says. “I didn’t know how I could get over that horizon”.

“Not a single stone on that headland has changed,” she says, “but now, it looks to me like I could easily put my hand through the picture I once gazed at with such sadness. I can reach through it, I know what is beyond”.

Instead of fragile, although petite and delicate, Duffy feels powerful. Instead of yearning, she feels settled. Most of the time, anyway.

What conclusions has she reached?

“Some people build things,” she says, “ . . . whilst some people smash things apart. Everybody has their own pleasures. I’ve found my pleasures in making compositions, writing words.”

Duffy, her Welsh accent a mix of strong and mild depending on her expression says curiously, she’s been learning to take responsibility for herself, for her own emotions, perhaps for the first time. As a result she is, she thinks, as happy as she has ever been. “Now people comment on my dimples again rather than my frown” She squints her eyes and sweeps her hair taking a moment to ponder on that exact idea” You know, my friends are like: ‘We haven’t seen those dimples in a few years”. She laughs.

And now, with the dimples in tow? “I’ll make my next move. Exactly what that move is, I’ll have to ponder further,” she blushes. “It’s the longest chess game I’ve ever played, but I promise my next move will be good”.

So . . . you won’t disappear forever?

After a little reflection she nods, “I think you’ll see me again…”

Playful, kittenish, but also deadly serious, our afternoon filled with musing, laughing and honesty, comes to a close.

Duffy looks up through her eyelashes, with piercing philosophical femininity and intelligence she adds, what sounds like the line to a song, “If I’d lost myself and you were to see me, I hope you’d tell me to wait, because I’d always be coming back”.

- Alex Bilmes

19 Sep: Duffy Sings "Hymn To Love" Live@PIAF Tribute Concert, Beacon Theater, New York

2013-09-21T08:55:00.000-07:00

The concert, paying tribute to Edith Piaf, was broadcast in France in October 2013.
PIAF : Hymnes à la Môme
Duffy : Hymn to love
A l'occasion des 50 ans de la disparition d'Edith Piaf, l'humoriste et comédien François-Xavier Demaison présente une soirée spéciale depuis le Beacon Theater de New York.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/international-stars-pay-tribute-edith-633279
Clips of Piaf, including her appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and several home movies, were projected throughout the evening. Duffy’s rendition of “Hymn to Love” featured extensive footage of the singer with her lover Marcel Cerdan, the famous boxer who died tragically in a plane crash.

The finale, as is usual for these types of events, featured all of the performers gathered onstage for an encore reprise of “La vie en rose” that ended the evening on a high note.
Set list Nolwenn Leroy & Zaz—"La foule" Harry Connick Jr.—"La vie en rose" Olivia Ruiz—"Milord" Madeleine Peyroux—"Padam Padam" Jean Louis Aubert—"Je t’ai dans la peau" Duffy—"Hymn to Love" Christophe Willem—"Mon Dieu" Nolwenn Leroy—"Je ne regrette rien" Coeur de Pirate—"Mon manege a moi" Zaz—"Dans ma rue" Beth Ditto—"L’homme a la moto" Elodie Frege—"Les amants d’un jour" Patrick Fiori—"L’accordeoniste" Charles Dumont—"Les amants" Charles Dumont -- "Les flonflons" Alex Hepburn—"Jezebel" Emmanuel Moire—"Sous le ciel de Paris" Patricia Kaas—"La belle histoire d’amour" Camelia Jordana—"L’hymne a l’amour" Angelique Kidjo—"Johnny tu n’es pas un ange" Ensemble—"La vie en rose"

Duffy with Coeur de Pirate (real name Beatrice Martin)

The Set List

7 Mar: Duffy Pap shots outside Hawn Foundation Fundraising Gala (Annabels, London)

2012-03-08T07:17:00.001-08:00

Duffy latest TwitPic

2012-02-21T09:03:00.000-08:00

Feb 11: Duffy@ BAFTA nominees party (Asprey, London)

2012-02-12T09:47:00.000-08:00

Duffy Sings Etta James' Trust In Me

2012-01-26T08:08:00.000-08:00

Duffy Photoshoot New York Nov 2010

2012-01-15T09:49:00.000-08:00

Photographer Chris Owyoung told the photographic story of how he got these shots despite it actually being dark at the time...

Chris was the photographer for Duffy's iheartradio album showcase back in November 2010 and these images are part of the full set of photos and videos of the soundcheck, interview and concert for this event.

Duffy on New Year's Eve with her sisters

2012-01-03T08:57:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas by Duffy

2011-12-16T09:19:00.000-08:00

Eating Mexican at a Bar Twitpic

2011-12-09T07:39:00.000-08:00

Dec 8: Duffy@ Premiere of Sherlock Holmes 2 Movie

2011-12-09T07:20:00.000-08:00

TwitPic

2011-12-07T07:26:00.000-08:00