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Monday, July 12, 2010

Bill Brandt and Murder For Hire retro songstress

Want a four minute quickie course on early to mid-1960's Brit-pop multi-media culture, manufactured just a couple of years ago in 2007?

Check out Duffy's video "Rockferry"* 
Everything's there r.e. Bill Brandt-esque high key, stark black and white cinematography like Rita Tushingham, Dirk Bogarde, Carol White and James Fox movies; a simple pop ballad made complex by the singer's Dusty Springfield-esque perfection; the singer herself a good looking young woman with long straight hair and bangs/fringe to the eyebrows, replete with haute couture Chanel jacket worn over far more casual pret-a-porter. And a ballad of somewhat undefined longing alongside specific geographic referencing, rather like "Ferry Cross The Mersey."

Initially lumped in the "we want a better behaved Amy Winehouse" crowd of '60s white-soul-influenced poppets, Welsh lass Duffy may prove the real deal. Time will tell (at present she's retrenching from initial fame blind-siding.) In very young singers, it's hard to channel the deepest meanings necessary to soul-influenced music, due to teens'/early20somethings' rather understandable lack of life experience. As a child, Duffy was put in a safe house due to her step-parents' involvement in a murder for hire. One suspects the life experience just might be there.

Her better known single "Mercy" to me straddled dance-y Joss Stone-ism to kickstart her career to her peers, understandable. But if you love the same '60s influences that this young singer (and Ms. Winehouse when she's not using) so obviously does, join Duffy in losing yourself in her sublime fadeout of "Rockferry" with the ebbing repeats of "...I wouldn't write to you, I'm not that kind..."

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zQP6vgWiek

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