EACH decade seems to have one. In the '80s it was Bonnie Tyler. In the '60s and '70s it was Shirley Bassey who ruled the roost.

This year it is the turn of a pocket-rocket blonde called Duffy to restore the Welsh reputation for giving the world a classic songstress.

Yet there's been just one other female icon's name on everyone's lips since she arrived with her number one single Mercy.

"Being compared to Dusty Springfield doesn't annoy me, not at all, but I genuinely don't feel I deserve a comparison like that," says the woman of the moment.

"Dusty went to Memphis in the middle of the 1960s when she was a top pop star in the UK. It was a big deal for her to fly there and do that and she made these big, dramatic records and went on and on for years after.

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"How can one girl from Wales possibly even stand next to someone like that?"

Okay, so Dusty had a few more years and hit albums under her belt but Duffy's March-released debut album Rockferry has drawn plenty of its own plaudits which Duffy handles with knowing modesty.

Named after a town on the Wirral, Rockferry threads the 23-year-old's classic voice around the epic melodramatic sound of the likes of The Walker Brothers and Phil Spector's fabled 'Wall Of Sound', but with a hint of Motown's mid-'60s heyday.

Like Amy Winehouse and fellow newcomer Adele, she's managed to make modern sound vintage and vice versa with ex-Suede guitarist Bernard Butler taking as much credit for his production values as his musical contribution.

Throw in tales of love, heartbreak, loss and regret and it is an old fashioned record born of time-honoured sentiments.

Duffy's words have been put to music by various songwriters, such as sometime KT Tunstall collaborator Jimmy Hogarth and Steve Booker, with whom she penned Mercy and Stepping Stone.

She was introduced to them and Butler – producer of albums for The Libertines, Manic Street Preachers, Bert Jansch and Roy Orbison – by her manager Jeanette Lee of Rough Trade Records in September 2004.

That has, of course, led to snide remarks in some quarters.

"I think people assume the record industry is a lot more contrived than it actually is," says Duffy in defence. "There was never a point where someone said 'Let's get you and Bernard Butler together, it would be great.' It was a casual thing – we met, had a laugh hanging out and one day decided to make some music."

All in all, however, the album has led to many positive statements and striking comments which the softly-spoken girl from the small north Wales town of Nefyn on the Llyn Peninsula is taking in her stride.

"It's all very unexpected, the response I've been getting. Lots of people want to talk to me, but I'm honestly not that interesting.


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