Duffy

Duffy Bishop has been compared to Janis Joplin, Dusty Springfield, and Bette Midler, but her own rocking R&B style extends beyond these comparisons. Bottled Oddities is the debut of Bishop and her band on Burnside Records and features the standout "Louisiana Flood." Duffy Bishop is an American electric blues singer and songwriter. She is in the Cascade Blues Association and Washington Blues Society Halls of Fame, and has been given a Lifetime Achievement Award by both bodies. In a career spanning over forty years, Bishop has also been a costume designer and an actress in musical theatre. To date she and her band have released seven albums. She has been the opening act for such artists as Roy Orbison, John Lee Hooker, Lou Rawls, Chicago, Ruth Brown, Bonnie Riatt, and Etta James, among others.

Rockferry, the Welsh singer's lovingly constructed debut album, has already succeeded beyond expectations, and although Duffy may not quite be the ingenue portrayed by a clever press campaign (she nearly won a local television talent show a few years back while a single credited to Aimee Duffy is still available on iTunes) she is surely the most appealing of the current flood of young soul sirens. The astonishing title track, co-written by Bernard Butler, sounded like a lost transmission that had taken decades to get through as soon as it hit radio last year. But the gently rolling soul ballad "Stepping Stone", that strapping, inescapable monster hit "Mercy", the ice cool "Serious" (the one time she really does channel the spirit of Dusty Springfield) and the wistful, elegant "Warwick Avenue" are similarly effective.