Joss Stone

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On 'Mind,' Joss Stone soulfully stretches out

By Renee Graham, Globe Staff | September 28, 2004

It would be natural to talk about how much Joss Stone's voice has matured since her 2003 debut, "The Soul Sessions," except that this teenager has always had the seasoned, lived-in pipes of a singer decades older.

A 16-year-old blonde from rural England with a voice marinated in classic Stax soul might have seemed like a gimmick. And with "The Soul Sessions," primarily a collection of obscure R&B songs, such as Joe Simon's "The Chokin' Kind," some gently dismissed Stone as a vocalist with enough of an ear to mimic soulfulness, but without the emotional ability to plumb the rich truths within the songs.

Of course, such sniping completely missed a very vi- tal point -- regardless of age or upbringing, Stone has a smashing voice, resonant with passion, power, and sass. That's even more apparent with her new album, "Mind, Body & Soul," due in stores today. Freed from the dusty grooves of her debut's old soul records, Stone gets to show off more of her own, still-developing, musical personality, as well as display her deepening confidence and grace as a singer.Go to www.boston.com/ae/music to hear clips from "Mind, Body & Soul." Stone co-wrote most of this album's tracks, and reassembles many of her debut's R&B stalwarts, including her mentor, singer-songwriter Betty Wright, guitarist Willie "Little Beaver" Hale, organist Timmy Thomas, and pianist Benny Lattimore. On various tracks she also gets assistance from Nile Rodgers (guitar on "You Had Me,") and ?uestlove (drums on "Sleep Like a Child.") Stone is the sparkling centerpiece, and it's her voice that propels this album through its 14 tracks.

"You Had Me," the album's bouncy first single, seems an attempt to allow Stone to act her age. That's not to say that the song, about a woman who dumps a no-good man, is some fizzy pop confection. Yet it moves away from the more archetypal soul sound that has marked Stone's nascent career, while not fiddling around too much with her distinct style.

Still, it can't top a song like "Spoiled," a luscious slow jam, co-written by Motown legend Lamont Dozier. Along with such tracks as "Right to Be Wrong," the album's opener, and "Jet Lag," "Spoiled" proves Stone's talents have ripened without sacrificing her refreshing ingenuousness. She achieves richness of sound without coming across forced, a minor fault that crept up at times on her debut. And for such a young singer with a dazzling voice, she exercises great restraint and control. As a songwriter, Stone is still a little raw -- on "Understand," she cites having a favorite love song on repeat on her iPod as a sign of devotion. Then again, she is just 17, and her songs at times capture the inarticulate heat and heartbreak of a first love.

The final two tracks, "Killing Time," co-written with Beth Gibbons of Portishead, and "Sleep Like a Child," are gems. Especially on the latter song, Stone's delivery is so gorgeous and elegant, there's little doubt this is a singer who'll be around well into the next decade, perhaps beyond. With a sound as easy as Sunday morning, "Mind, Body & Soul" is one of the year's best albums, as Stone again proves she has talent to burn and soul to spare.

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Joss Performing

Joss with Others

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Performing on VH1 Divas 2004

Performing on VH1 Inside Tracks Concert

Joss Photos from Different Events/Shoots

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Photo Collages

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Beautiful in Black & White

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Joss Stone performing on Conan O'Brian The Chokin' Kind

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Joss Performing at Glastonbury 2004 - Super Duper Love

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Joss Performing at Glastonbury 2004 - The Chokin' Kind

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Random Magazine Scans (i don't have dates on all of these)

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E-mail from S-Curve

This month's VIBE says:

"Like drinking ice-cold fresh-squeezed lemonade on a hot summer day, Joss Stone's willfully retro sophomore effort is deeply refreshing...Stone's simplicity and rawness will come as revelation: less really can be more."

Newsweek Magazine says:

“Can a white girl from the United Kingdom keep up with such neosoul contemporaries as Angie Stone or Jill Scott? As hard as it is to admit, the answer is yes...hold on, because the next few years are going to be a wild ride for the supremely talented Stone.”

And Mind, Body & Soul was People Magazine’s Critic’s Choice Album of the Week:

“Mind, Body & Soul more than fulfills the promise that Stone showed on The Soul Sessions, revealing the singer to also be a talented songwriter who soars even higher with her own material.”

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Joss Stone’s Talents Are Put To The Test

Thursday September 30, 2004 @ 03:30 PM

By: ChartAttack.com Staff

It's odd that a white 17-year-old British girl has become the new face of soul music. Aretha Franklin and Etta James, both aging African-American legends are far more typical soul icons, but what made them popular in their day, is the same thing making young Joss Stone popular now — a booming and beautiful voice.

Stone surprised everyone last year by releasing an album full of ambitious soul numbers, tackling tracks by Franklin, The Isley Brothers and even soul-ifing The White Stripes' "Fell In Love With A Girl." Her powerful vocal chords cemented her as a soul diva, but now the British teen is about to test whether her songwriting skills jive with her big voice.

Several songs on Mind, Body And Soul, Stone's first flirtation with songwriting, were actually written when she was a newly-minted teen. "I started to write this disc when I was 14," Stone says. "All the songs came together then."

Fortunately, Stone says, her love of soul interrupted the recording for this disc and sent her in the studio to put together The Soul Sessions.

"I'm glad we had The Soul Sessions in between it," she says. "It gave me time to try out new things and learn new things and it opened a lot of doors."

Little did Stone know how many doors The Soul Sessions would open. The disc was a huge hit, selling more than two million copies world wide, making her a household name. Her sudden fame is creating a lot more pressure for Stone to succeed as a songwriter than she initially anticipated. Despite these anxieties, Stone isn't worried about her critics.

"Critics are going to say what they're going to say," she says. "I was thinking about that while I was writing this. I didn't want anyone to think [negatively], I just wanted to say what I want to say, but I've made it now and the disc is finished. There's nothing I can do about it."

While Mind Body And Soul is more Christina Aguilera than Gladys Knight, the young Brit is much more down to earth than her young compatriots. "I'm not a big star!" says an obviously embarrassed Stone. "People keep saying that and I don't know why!"

Stone's naivety is refreshing, but it's hard to believe that anyone but a big star would be invited to play Elton John's post-Oscar party.

"Elton John is pretty cool," she says enthusiastically. "Elton always has someone he likes, some new artist, to sing [at the party] and it was me. He even sang with me."

John wasn't the only one who thought of Stone as a star. One of her idols, '70s soul great Betty Wright, thought enough of Stone to help her write Mind, Body And Soul. Needless to say, Stone benefited from the experience. "I love that woman," says Stone. "She's like my second mother. She gave me good advice, she's like 'sing every single day.'"

Even with White's advice and a top selling album, Stone feels like there's still a lot to learn. "I'm only learning and I can't do everything right. If I was doing everything right I'd just be like a robot. [Mind, Body And Soul] is my first attempt, I don't know how to write. I'm just making it up, I really am."

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British teen Joss Stone is moving to the beat

By Randy Lewis

Los Angeles Times

British singer Joss Stone breezes into a Los Angeles rehearsal studio and folds her 5-foot-9-and-still-growing teenage frame onto a utilitarian sofa. As is her penchant onstage, the lanky blonde kicks off her shoes, preferring to go barefoot any time she's around a microphone.

The shoeless approach is perhaps a symbol of her comfort level despite a slight case of nerves from anticipation surrounding a House of Blues showcase in West Hollywood for which she and her band were gearing up.

Much of that anticipation is keyed to how material from her new album, "Mind, Body & Soul," will go over with the fans and music industry executives who will be on hand.

A day before the show, she hasn't ruled out the prospect that she might bomb.

"We'll just have to see," she suggests with a laugh.

For one who's just 17, Stone exudes a refreshing wariness toward fame, even though she easily might get caught up in it given the celebrity admirers she's won, including Elton John, Lenny Kravitz, Tom Cruise and Mick Jagger. (She's recorded three songs, two with Jagger, for the upcoming remake with Jude Law of the 1966 film "Alfie.")

They're among fans who latched on to Stone through her 2003 debut recording, "The Soul Sessions." That 10-song collection, mostly little-known R&B nuggets from the '60s and '70s, introduced a voice and style that made many listeners think she was a veteran soul singer from the American South rather than a gangly white teen from rural Devon, England.

It has sold more than 600,000 copies in the United States alone, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and remains on Billboard's Top 200 Albums chart more than a year later.

That wasn't what Stone expected or even wanted out of the project, which she envisioned essentially as a calling card for "Mind, Body & Soul," the work she likes to call "my real debut."

"The Soul Sessions" was never meant to be an album. "The only way they got me to agree with it was by saying it would just be an EP (extended-play mini-album) that would sell a couple thousand," she says.

"It's nice it was selling, but in a way I felt like 'Please stop,' " she says. "It's good, really, but it makes it harder for this (new) one because people are going to be looking at it really hard."

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Concert Review: Joss Stone

Thu Sep 23, 2004 09:42 PM ET

By Ray Bennett

LONDON (Hollywood Reporter) - When a giggly teenager from rural Devon in the English West Country ships 2 million copies of a collection of soul classics, it's clear that something extraordinary is going on.

The question facing Joss Stone was, could she follow up "The Soul Sessions" with an album of original songs?

Stone, who is just 17 and still giggles between numbers, delivered an emphatic answer in a passionate 75-minute set to launch her new Relentless Virgin album, "Mind, Body & Soul."

The incongruity remains: hearing wise and full-throated renditions emerge from a still chunky, barefoot teenager with straw-colored hair, wearing jeans and a perky off-the-shoulder top.

Fronting two keyboard players, two guitarists, a percussionist and three backup singers, Stone showed an ability to inhabit songs about love and heartache, betrayal and forgiveness that soon submerged any doubts based on the way she looks.

Stone opened with "Super Duper" from her debut album, and her posture when singing was that of someone with complete confidence in the power of her voice to control not only a song but also the audience. Her stride was as spirited as her singing, and she presented herself to the crowd with the same authority that she brought to her phrasing.

Stone takes co-writing credit on most of the songs on the new album. While the record is satiny and radio-friendly, it will also stand her in good stead in building a long-lasting career that is hers for the taking.

"You Had Me" had the grabby beat of the single that it is, "Don't Cha Wanna Ride" was as sassy as the title suggests, and "Spoiled" built slowly to a towering storm of a climax that Stone rendered fully.

"Right to Be Wrong" saw the young performer in strutting, defiant mode, declaring her independence to a lazy beat, while she felt free to instruct her lover in the uptempo "Less Is More." With a sensuous R&B feel and smooth and funky tones, "Snakes and Ladders" offered indications of where Stone might be heading.

Having dipped her teenage toes into the American market with her first album and opening on tour for Simply Red, Stone will take greater strides with her second one and should establish herself as a force to be reckoned with. In concert, she takes on every number with the assurance of a veteran. If ever there was a talent whose success appears to be predestined, it's Joss Stone.

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Paul Hawthorne / Getty Images file

Stone solid as a rock on 'Mind, Body & Soul'

Not-so-pop singer conjures up 70s soul on sophomore album

Joss Stone' husky voice is both eloquent and vulnerable on "Mind, Body & Soul," more Taylor Dane than Mariah Carey. And Stone’s vocal acrobatics are intentional, not showy.

Oh, what feeling there is during “Mind, Body & Soul,” Joss Stone’s follow-up to her debut EP, a compilation of soulful covers.

The not-so-pop singer finds the emotional climax in every song on the 14-track disc. Her husky voice is both eloquent and vulnerable, more Taylor Dane than Mariah Carey. And Stone’s vocal acrobatics are intentional, not showy. This — combined with her honest lyrics — creates an atmosphere of authenticity.

“Mind, Body & Soul” recalls ’70s soul, but it isn’t a trip to the past. There are musical and lyrical traces of 2004 from sleek R&B beats to gratuitous iPod references.

“You Had Me,” the most upbeat track on the CD, is a sassy disco-ish rallying call against a moocher and a scumbag, probably best played while dizzyingly tossing your ex’s stuff out the nearest window. A plucky harp adds another dimension to “Snakes and Ladders.” “Less is More” is hypnotic, infused with reggae rhythms and a sturdy chorus.

The oh-so-mature lyrics beat anything an “American Idol” could conjure. Probably because Stone is English. She chants about love and vodka, which is surprising considering she’s only 17. But with behind-the-scenes help from soulster Betty Wright and her own mum, Stone is free to travel outside PG-13 territory.

However, Stone lyrically skips during faint but frequent references to stone. You know, rocks. That’s right, Stone tells us in song that she’s “not made of stone” and doesn’t want “no stones outside my window.” It’s a trite reminder that Stone has room to grow.

The sheer power of her voice and command of it make such small mistakes forgivable. During the opening track, she croons, “I might be singing out of key, but it sure feels good to me.”

Well, she isn’t singing out of key. And it doesn’t feel good. It’s feels great.

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Like a rolling Stone

Joss Stone is running late. She was due at the Broadway studios of VH1 in midtown Manhattan an hour ago. The camera crew from the music channel had been allocated a 60-minute portion of her hectic schedule. In that time she has to have her hair and make-up fine-tuned, the interviewer has a raft of questions needing answered, and they have various ‘station IDs’ - of the "Hi, I’m Joss Stone, this is VH1" variety - to tick off.

First their slot gets cut to 45 minutes ("the Stone entourage has left their hotel," comes the message). Then half an hour ("she’s in traffic"). It’s nothing personal, not least because VH1 has been a long and enthusiastic champion of the teenage British soul prodigy - her appearance on the station’s Las Vegas spectacular Divas in April (in which she performed alongside Gladys Knight) went a long way to breaking her into the US. But she’s a busy girl, as we might expect of an artist who has sold 2.5 million copies of her debut album of covers, The Soul Sessions.

Last night she launched her first proper record, Mind Body And Soul, with a New York concert. Immediately after today’s New York appointment she’s on a plane to Los Angeles to join a concert celebrating the work of producer Quincy Jones. Such are the demands on her time from a besotted America that her life is a whirl of press conferences, TV obligations and transcontinental flights. Europe, far less her home county of Devon, hardly gets a look in.

And her lateness is certainly nothing to do with being flaky. Sure, back when she was just another West Country schoolgirl, she would wake up at eight o’clock and be on the bus "in five minutes". She was given to staying up "real late - cos that’s when I get inspired, you know?’ Plus, she hated school. She wasn’t so good at concentrating, a situation largely attributable to her dyslexia. "I hated waking up - if I get over-tired I feel really sick. So [i wouldn’t] feel very well," she says of her school days. "And you have to go to a place where all these arrogant people tell you what to do, and they don’t actually know what they’re talking about. Like, if they really knew, wouldn’t they be doing it rather than teaching it?"

But school is some distance behind Joss Stone now. Even if such typically self-righteous - and amusing - teenage rants are not. It is barely five years since she won a UK TV talent show, leading to the singer’s eventual discovery in early 2002 by an American record executive. Now aged 17, the girl born Joscelyn Stoker is a bona fide international superstar. She has met and chatted with George W Bush (she wasn’t impressed). Tom Cruise is such a fan that Stone, her mum and a friend have been to his house for dinner (he’s a top geezer). The mesmerising, gut-busting emotional intensity of her voice has impressed all sorts of musical luminaries and shifted records around the world. So much so that she has hardly been home for over a year. But Britain has fallen for her too: Mind Body And Soul has powered to the top of the album charts, making Stone the youngest female solo artist to have a UK number one album.

In New York, she finally arrives at VH1. They’ll get a good 30 minutes of her time. She’s tired but smiley and relaxed, radiantly beautiful and dolled-up in her familiar middle-class-hippy/soul-chick garb. Scarves, bangles and artfully tangled long hair are big with Stone, and she always performs barefoot. As a few minor make-up touches are applied, she chats amiably off-camera.

The Divas show was great fun, she says. Singing soul classic ‘I’ve Got To Use My Imagination’ with Gladys Knight and Jessica Simpson was fantastic, although she wasn’t impressed with Simpson. The American reality TV megastar and wholesome pop singer had been lovely to her face. But Stone heard that she hadn’t wanted to sing with the British girl. One can reasonably surmise that Simpson feared being blown off stage by the full-force power of Stone’s voice. "Gladys Knight is just a nice person," Stone had gushed to me earlier that day. "Her spirit is really beautiful. She knew I was nervous, and as we were about to go on she said, ‘It’s gonna be a’ight.’" Here Stone had lapsed into black American vernacular, something she does often.

"It was like she was saying, ‘I’ve got your back.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, okay, cool.’ It makes you feel really comfortable. People that have been around for that long and are great, they’re not bitches. If they were, they wouldn’t still be doing stuff. The nastier you are, the more diva-like you are, whatever, people are like, ‘I’m not gonna work with her.’"

Such has been the rapidity of her rise that Stone is a curious mix of the wise veteran and the ingénue teenager. Sure, she knows how the business works, how musical legends conduct themselves, that a bad rep goes a long way. She was okay with taking a stage name, because it helps her adopt a different, more confident persona for performances. But she’s also just a kid who finds it tricky to keep her soundbites acceptably bland. Thus she breezes her way through the VH1 questions professionally but with disarming honesty.

She tells the viewing millions that she wanted ‘Jet Lag’ to be the first single from Mind Body And Soul. But the record company preferred a track that was "like a punch in the face" after the chilled out textures of The Soul Sessions, and picked the brazenly funky ‘You Had Me’. No, she says, puzzlement writ large her face, she isn’t going to be collaborating with Christina Aguilera. All that happened was, she phoned celebrity photographer-turned-director David LaChapelle to discuss a forthcoming video. He was with Aguilera at the time and passed the phone to her; she said to Stone, "We should work together some time!" And that was it. "I was gonna get Ms Dynamite to work on my album," says Stone helpfully, "but there was no time."

Yes, she did recently record some songs with Mick Jagger. They’re for the soundtrack to the remake of Alfie. "That was really cool,’ she gushes. "He’s a really sweet, normal guy. Down to earth. English."

On to personal matters: now that she’s presumably well-off from having sold so many records, has she been splashing out? "Nah." She hates shopping. Anyway, she doesn’t have ready access to her earnings. She’s only 17. "What kind of parent is gonna give their kid a credit card?" she says. "Hey, I might get a coke addiction. You never know." This is not the kind of brazen jocularity that they’re used to in the scaredy-cat, censorious world of American mass entertainment. Especially from under-age girls.

Our interview had taken place earlier that day, in the deserted restaurant of a New York hotel. Prior to the previous night’s album-launch show, she had done a warm-up gig in a small pub. It was good, she adjudges, but she was horrified to spot a reviewer right in front of her. "Ohmygod, how can you do that?" she had thought. "How can you sit there and critique me where I can see you? I need all the support I can get."

Today her voice is hoarse from the shows. She also has a more deep-seated fatigue. It is a little less than a year since the release of The Soul Sessions, and she has worked constantly since then. Her American label had dispatched her to Miami and the care of a bunch of Southern soul musicians marshalled by singer and producer Betty Wright. Against expectations, the resulting album was a huge hit. "The thing is," she says, "I wasn’t meant to do all the promoting work I did for The Soul Sessions. It was meant to be a five-track EP. They were just gonna release it to get my name out there. And then I would have time to write my album, be all relaxed. But it just kept selling! It was really nice, but at the same time I’m like, ‘I wanna do another album.’"

The result was that Mind, Body And Soul was recorded in fits and starts in New York and Miami. In between she found herself nipping off for starry obligations such as the Divas show, the 45th Anniversary Of Motown extravaganza (at which she duetted with Smokey Robinson) and a concert tribute to James Brown (live from Washington, in the company of the President). In the circumstances, was it difficult to maintain focus? "Not the focus, just my voice. If there’s a good lyric and a nice melody, I’ll be into it in two seconds. It’s just a strain on my voice, that’s the only thing that pisses me off. I’m not really a confident singer anyway, so when my voice is busted, oh..." She trails off and shakes her head.

Her worries are misplaced. Even at the show the previous evening, when she was tired and carrying a slight cold, her voice was extraordinary. Of the new songs, many of which bear a co-writing credit for Stone, ‘Jet Lag’ was smoky and sultry. ‘You Had Me’, which was recorded with Chic’s Nile Rogers on guitar, mined an irresistible groove and was propelled by grunting, fevered vocals. Stone-cold soul, indeed. Even at the age of 17, she has more than enough oomph to carry emotionally stirring songs.

Then there was ‘Spoiled’. A slow-burning ballad that builds to a devastating holler. It’s her favourite song on the album, partly because it was co-written by Motown legend Lamont Dozier and his son Beau. The latter is now Stone’s boyfriend. Beaming, she says that when Beau came up with the lyric "I’ve never seen the word ‘love’ so personified as I do with you", she was smitten. "I’m like, I’m marrying that man right now," she gushes. "Like, wow! Such beautiful lyrics."

There have been other changes on a personal level. She now has seven piercings (ear, nose, navel) and wants more. The amateurish school-days tattoo on her ankle has been improved upon by her bass-player’s Miami professional, and she and Beau are considering getting matching ones.

Stone has also been forced on a steep learning curve by her speedy success. She may be young, but she’s learning to stand her ground against the music industry’s dark arts. "People try to tell you what to wear and to lose weight and all this other shit. It doesn’t help at all with performance. It just makes you really self-conscious.

"At the end of the day, I’m a singer. I don’t want to be fake, ever. I don’t want to do the Barbie doll thing, and dance moves and shit. I like music. I don’t like the image thing. I hate photo shoots. I hate the fact that I have to have pictures on my album. But you have to because it’s the way the industry has turned now. Before, when they just had radio, no one cared. They didn’t have videos, they didn’t have to do TV shows, and the music was great,’ she hisses excitedly. "And I love listening to old-school stuff because of that. Because that’s all that mattered."

This attitude couldn’t be further from those of her peers back in the UK pop market. She has clearly learned a lot from the soul legends in whose care she was rather cannily placed. Does she still get time to be a normal teenager? "Sometimes," she says half-heartedly. "When I go home, which isn’t very often. But if I was at school I would be sitting on my ass and I wouldn’t do anything."

Much as she loves going home, every time she does "there’s some new rumour. I can’t believe the stuff that they say." What about her builder ex-boyfriend? Has she had to endure him selling his story? "Oh no, he hasn’t got much of a story. I was with him for a month, maybe a little more. He was just the sweetest guy. We were more friends, you know how that goes. People do say a lot of shit, but none of it’s true."

The hectic experiences of the last two years have made Stone worldly wise. As you have to become when the tabloids have started hassling your granny in Dover - "a lot of press that want to get to me will go to my family, so that’s another reason I was okay with changing my name" - and you discover you only have three real mates back home. That’s really sad, really horrible," she says. She’s downbeat for the first time as she considers the loneliness of success.

"It’s the nastiest thing to find out when you’re 17. There are some people that I love to pieces that just aren’t there for me. I don’t always have time to call them, and they can’t call me cos it’s America or whatever. So I guess you just lose touch. Then when I go back, they think that I’m doing it deliberately. They think that I’m trying to be a bitch. But I’m not.

"And everyone’s pulling in every direction. The record company wants me here, the other record company in England wants me there, Italy and Germany and de de de de... My mum and dad have broken up, so they both want to see me but they don’t want to see each other. Whatever, I’m used to it. They’ve been broken up forever. My brothers and sister want to see me, but they’re not trying to stress me. They know. And my friends are like, ‘Come and see us...’"

Joss Stone, teenage motormouth, stops and gives the ‘what can you do?’ smile of a seasoned pro. "It’s all equally important, but there’s only one of me. And I’m only in England for like a day. I just turn off my phone and go to sleep. I don’t know what to do," she wails, mock-dramatically. "I don’t know what to do."

There’s a possible move to Beau’s hometown of LA to consider, but then she’d miss her family in Devon, and thinks she might also want to buy an "apartment" there with friends Bonnie and Robbie. She has wangled the age at which she gets access to her cash down from 25, first to 23 but now 21, she says with a triumphant whoop.

Stone gives a smiley shrug. Her life is bonkers, and will only get more so. But she’s doing a good job of keeping it together.

Being feisty, she says, runs in her family. Granny Stoker in Dover gave that tabloid journo what for. Her mum is a former English karate champ. "Mum can be really nice," she coos. "Everyone loves her. But she’s this big, and she had four brothers, so she can look after herself. She brought up all her kids to be the same. Not to be nasty, though. It’s just looking after yourself. And the women in my family are all like that, apart from my sister, who’s the worst! I’m gonna have to sort her out," she laughs. "She’s too sweet, I have to look after her. Even though she’s older than me, ha ha!"

from The Scotsman

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Roskilde Festival 2004

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Sound of 2004: Joss Stone

Teenage soul singer Joss Stone has come fifth in BBC News Online's Sound of 2004 survey to find the best new music artists.

Joss Stone's manager has a trick he likes to play on people who hear her music for the first time. He plays the CD of her big-voiced, often emotional, sometimes troubled vintage-style soul while the singer is waiting in the next room. Just as the listener is visualising an Aretha Franklin-style diva, he calls in Stone, a blonde 16-year-old from Devon, England. This combination of strong, soulful voice with innocent looks and youthful experience has caused some raised eyebrows in her short career. She "is a lot more Britney than Whitney" noted the New York Times. "That is - until she begins to sing."

The strength and depth of her voice have meant her age, looks and origins have been unimportant for many soul fans who have already discovered her. The last three months has been a whirlwind of concerts, travelling, promotion in the US and UK for her debut album The Soul Sessions - and hype. "Joss Stone and her Soul Sessions amount to a load of hype you can dare to believe in," wrote a critic in The Observer newspaper. "It's been really good - I've been really, really busy, I've been on a million planes," Stone told BBC News Online. "I've been to different places, met new people, it's been a completely different experience."

Stone worked with singer Betty Wright, who had several hits in the 1970s. That hype has included press descriptions of her as "the white Aretha Franklin". "I think it's kind of funny," Stone says. "Aretha Franklin? I wish. But it's never going to happen. "It was a real huge compliment and people are being really nice," she adds. The Stone story began when she got Franklin's greatest hits for Christmas aged 10, and went on BBC talent show Star for a Night four years later, singing Donna Summer's On The Radio.

Two London producers who saw a later charity show phoned Steve Greenberg, head of the US-based S-Curve Records, to tell him about the greatest British singer they had ever heard.

'Passion and feeling'

Greenberg says Stone has "not only a great voice but also the ability to put her own original stamp on classic material". "She wasn't just mimicking - she was changing and interpreting the songs, and doing it with passion and feeling," he says. "The level of nuance was just astounding for someone who was then 14 years old." He hooked Stone up with Grammy-winning soul singer and producer Betty Wright, who described the teenager's voice as "a gift from heaven". Wright then rounded up her old Miami soul band, some of whom she had not seen for years, to play on The Soul Sessions.

Ambitions

The album includes Stone's versions of songs like Aretha Franklin's All The King's Horses and the Isley Brothers' For The Love Of You.

She also enlisted jazz-rap band The Roots to back her on a soulful version of The White Stripes' rock song Fell In Love With A Girl - which will be her new single. Her main musical ambition, she says is to play at the Glastonbury music festival - because "it just seems like a fun thing to do and all my friends would be there". She does not have any other specific ambitions, she says - "just sing anywhere and meet new people and be successful I suppose".

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photos from the hard rock's official website

Edited May 7, 2005 by QBall