Aimee Duffy

Soul music singer from ... wait for it ... Wales. She kind of has an Elvis thing going, insofar as she's pale as a Welsh girl can be, yet sings American Soul music as if born in a shotgun house. Have listened to the catchy "Mercy" about 10 times, and am not near tired of it yet.

Duffy's youthful, mercurial missteps remind of a young and lost LeAnn Rimes in desperate need of mentoring.

Wikipedia:

Raised in Nefyn on the Llŷn Peninsula in North Wales, with her twin sister, Katy Ann, and older sister Kelly, Aimeé Duffy grew up speaking Welsh as her mother tongue.^[4] Her parents divorced when she was ten and she moved to Pembrokeshire with her mother and sisters. She dropped her first name at the age of nineteen, calling herself Duffy professionally and personally.^[5]

Duffy's introduction to soul music and inspiration to get into the music industry occurred while watching Whoopi Goldberg's performance in the movie Sister Act.^[6] It is known that Duffy watched her father's videotapes of the 1960s television rock show Ready Steady Go!^[7] – she says she grew up without a record collection of her own.^[8] Duffy began singing at age six and carried around a notebook which she filled with scribbled lyrics. She was later asked to leave her school choir because her voice was "too big" and she "didn't fit in."^[9]