On The Download: Duffy

Welcome to On the Download!

After years of sifting through great music and picking out only the best to put on the show, we thought we would expand our music coverage thanks to the recent re-launch of our Web site here at AccessHollywood.com.

We love music here. Big time. Despite those early work starts, we’re still out most nights at the concerts, spinning the promos in the office in the day and seeking out new and just plain cool music all over the web on weekends. And it’s with this in mind that we’d like to introduce you to our new feature: On the Download.

Each week, Access Hollywood’s music division hopes to share with you our tips for the artists, tracks, records and all things music that you need to know about, now, before they take off and you’re left, like our friends were last week, crying when they couldn’t get tickets for all of the sold-out Radiohead shows.

This week in particular, we’ve been buzzing off of a blonde 23-year-old from the UK named Duffy.

Like Amy Winehouse, Duffy is a modern artist with a sincere love of the great ‘60s Motown era. Duffy’s a little like a new Lulu, the pint-sized great, gravelly soulful vocalist from Scotland.

A few weeks ago, if you were lucky, you might have caught Duffy’s song, “Mercy,” which the folks over at iTunes kindly made available as a free download. If you missed it, well good news! You can check it out over on the left in our video player and watch the heavy-eyelashed, mini-bouffant Welsh singer churn out some soulful vocals as boys in Ted Baker shirts breakdance, and one even sets a fire on the dance floor – literally.

The hip cut is part of her debut album, “Rock Ferry,” which will be out stateside on May 13 and if you are in New York, you can check her out at a special gig at the Apollo.

And this Sunday, she’ll be wowing people the same way Amy Winehouse did last year, with a super-set at California’s Coachella festival.