Music with a Message
Singer Sue Duffield returns home to SJ for a benefit concert

By Terri Akman

Sue Duffield

Years ago, Sue Duffield was a happy teen singing into her hairbrush in front of the mirror in her Penns Grove home. Today, the 56-year-old entertainer travels the world with a one-woman show that she says makes people smile – and think. After moving to Nashville two years ago, Duffield is returning home and using her musical message to benefit the Neighborhood Center in Camden.

“I grew up in SJ, and I’ve seen the incredible things the center has offered to kids in Camden,” she says.

Duffield’s concert will showcase her unique style of music and comedy. She has recorded more than 30 albums and recently completed Standard Response, a collection of old standards from the ’40s and ’50s plus some Motown tunes. She is currently on the road, sharing her day-to-day life through stand-up comedy, often billed as “Girl’s Night Out” events.

Duffield began singing when she was in high school. “That was when contemporary Christian music had just started,” she remembers. “I started singing in a lot of churches and youth events. Here I am, 37 years later, still doing the same thing, but it’s taken on so many different flavors. I started singing for the youth events and now I’m doing the senior events – but I’m still singing for the same people!”

For ten years, Duffield was a deejay at Wilmington’s WNRK-AM radio. “The years of radio really refined me and gave me what I call a ‘connection versus communication thrust,’ which makes sure I’m a connector and not just a communicator,” she says.

Before heading down the Christian music path, Duffield was approached by two record producers who wanted to sign her to their pop label. She turned them down.

“You look at someone like Taylor Swift, who has an incredible physical appearance. I just never thought that I fit the bill,” she says. “I never fell into that Hollywood kind of mindset. Going into Christian music, I was a little apprehensive to not sell-out.”

Yet Duffield says she has no regrets. She enjoys being the so-called chief cook and bottle washer – booking and appearing in her own shows. And because of the message she shares through her shows, her audiences are diverse. She has performed for NASCAR drivers and their wives before race day and inmates at a women’s prison. “I talk and listen to the pains and the pressures of what women go through in prison,” she says. “Women share the same difficulties in prison as we do on the outside, worrying about their kids who are outside the walls of the prison.”

Duffield and her husband, who also serves as her producer and arranger, have set up home in Nashville to have an impact in the musical community there. “We weren’t looking to go to Nashville for a hit song, we know the realities,” says Duffield. “But what we were looking for was an opportunity to impact young musicians here. If a musician can make a living in the Northeast for 37 years, we may have something to offer a lot of younger kids who are rising songwriters and rising producers coming up the ranks in the contemporary music realm. We are trying our best to be mentors.”

After the SJ concert this month, Duffield will travel to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, teaming up with the group Redeeming Roses. “I will be doing some wonderful outreach to women who have been abused and neglected and had all kinds of difficulties with human trafficking,” she says. “I remember hearing when I was a kid horrific stories, even in my town, of women being abused. Worldwide, women are still going through oppression, which is hard to believe in 2011.”

But Duffield always looks forward to coming back to SJ, the place she still calls home. She says she can’t wait to dig into some silver queen corn and Jersey tomatoes – delicacies she can’t get in Nashville – and to visit with family who still live in the Delaware Valley.

“You can take the girl out of Jersey,” Duffield quips, “but you can’t take the Jersey out of the girl!”