HOWZAT

In time, one of many demos she had recorded reached the desk of Jeanette Lee, who 20 years ago and in partnership with Geoff Travis founded Rough Trade, the record label and management company (among the acts she has represented are Pulp and Beth Orton). “Instantly I was completely taken with this amazing voice,” she recalls. “I didn’t even know if Duffy and I would work together. But I felt strongly that I needed to meet her and help her take things forward. When she came to London to see Geoff and me, we were just bowled over. She was charming, disarming, a breath of fresh air.”

Duffy, by then back in Nefyn and travelling by bus each day to Pwllheli to work in a ladies’ seconds clothing store (“Lovely owners, stock around ten seasons old and waiting bravely to come back into fashion, mainly elderly clientele, nothing over a tenner”), remembers being similarly smitten. “I didn’t know what Rough Trade was or what it stood for, but of course I recognise warmth and knowledge. A lot of people I’d met along the way had wanted me to do things I didn’t want to, in terms of sound or songs or style. Jeanette and Geoff were just so relaxed.” And for Lee, the fact that Duffy was self-admittedly ignorant of music history but desperate to learn was “the absolute perfect situation. We set about introducing her to great music and she simply lapped it all up.”

They also introduced her to ex-Suede guitarist, now record producer Bernard Butler, who was similarly taken with her artlessness. “She managed to grow up without any concept of what’s cool or current, even of how to sing,” he enthuses. “For her, coming to London at all, was the stuff of fairytales. It meant taking two buses, then two trains, took all day and was a leap of faith. Then she’d do it all in reverse to get home, playing the music she’d just made to old ladies she’d meet upon the way. It’s hard for cynical music industry types to comprehend how far removed she was from our world. But what you’ve got as a result is someone who acts and sings utterly unselfconsciously and from the heart, a most rare and magical thing.”

Together they wrote the title track of Rockferry three years ago, and so began the slow process of readying Duffy for the spotlight. Along the way, Lee became her manager, a small band of writers and producers was brought on board (Jimmy Hogarth, Eg White and Steve Booker) and a deal signed with A&M. The resultant album is gorgeous, mixing sounds redolent of Dionne Warwick and Dusty Springfield’s Bacharach & David-penned Sixties heartbreak with something very Welsh, untamed and all of Duffy’s own. Radio 1’s Jo Whiley was sufficiently moved to make Rockferry her single of the week; similarly, her one appearance on Later was not enough for Jools Holland, and she went back a second time. She’ll be a star.

But currently she’s one in waiting, and with blue lips, Porthdinllaen beach in winter being what it is. “Is that Amy?” wonders pensioner “Ming” Owen, on her way back from the Londis mini-mart. “It is! You having your picture taken as well and me in this old coat.” Then, turning to the rest of us, she adds, “Lovely girl. Sweet girl. Always was. I hope it’s true what they say in the paper.” (“Young singer hits the big time,” reads the billboard outside the newsagent’s this week.) At which point publican Stuart Webley, spotting Duffy amid our sorry crew, takes pity and opens up Ty Coch Inn. Her old schoolfriend Elgan Jones happens by, too, in recovery having broken his back playing rugby.

They want to know all about making an album and what it was like to tour recently in support of the Magic Numbers. “Amazing,” says Duffy of the latter experience. “The first time ever my family sees me perform and it’s at the Festival Hall. Mum was there, my stepdad, an auntie and uncle and two cousins. Another auntie cancelled ’cos she was worried about the terrorists in London.” Meanwhile, and en route to popping in on her dad, what she needs to know in return is all that’s been happening in her old neck of the woods: “Who’s going out with who? Who’s broken up? All of that.” A three-cornered volley of Welsh ensues. To the rest of us, only an increasingly wide-eyed Duffy’s eventual, “Scandal! Scan-dal!” is comprehensible. Which proves that you can take the girl out of Nefyn...

The single Mercy is released on February 25 and the album Rockferry on March 3, on A&M. Duffy is on tour from January 16

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