June 23: Welsh singer-songwriter Duffy - AKA Aimée Duffy - is 29-years-old today.

 

 

 

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Aimée Ann Duffy - popularly known simply as “Duffy,” is a Welsh singer-songwriter. She was born in Bangor, Gwynedd, and brought up in Nefyn on the Llŷn Peninsula, in Gwynedd, Wales.

Duffy was interested in music from an early age, beginning to sing at age 6, carrying a notebook that 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."

When she was fifteen, she started singing in various local bands. Duffy then spent six weeks in Switzerland (before she started college), collaborating with the writer-producer Soren Mounir, under the name Soulego.

In 2004, following success on the Welsh television talent show Wawffactor, Duffy recorded a three-song Welsh extended play, titled Aimée Duffy, while working part time in two jobs as waitress and in a fishmongers. It later achieved 2008 Welsh chart success, charting at number-one on the "Siart C2" music chart.

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 woman to achieve number-one on the UK Singles Chart since Bonnie Tyler topped the charts with "Total Eclipse of the Heart" in 1983.

In 2009, Duffy won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album for Rockferry, and she was nominated for two other Grammys at the 51st Grammy Awards. that same year, she won three Brit Awards: British Breakthrough, Best Female Solo and Best British Album.

In 2010 she completed recording of her second album Endlessly which was released in November and made her acting debut in the film Patagonia.

In February 2011 it was announced that Duffy would take an extended hiatus from music before beginning work on her third album.

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For more about Duffy, visit her Website at -

http://www.iamduffy.com/

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