Joss Stone
Joss Stone (born Jocelyn Eve Stoker on 11 April 1987) is an English soul and R&B singer-songwriter and actress. Stone emerged to fame in late 2003 with her multi-platinum debut album, The Soul Sessions, which made the 2004 Mercury Prize shortlist. Her second album, the also-multi-platinum Mind, Body & Soul, topped the UK Albums Chart for one week and spawned the top ten hit “You Had Me”, Stone’s most successful single on the UK Singles Chart to date. Both album and single each received one nomination at the 2005 Grammy Awards, while Stone herself was nominated for Best New Artist. Stone’s latest album, Introducing Joss Stone, released in March 2007, has achieved gold status by the RIAA.
Throughout her career, Stone has sold over ten million albums worldwide, and has won two BRIT Awards and one Grammy Award. She also made her acting debut in late 2006 with the fantasy adventure film Eragon, as the witch Angela, and she will make her television debut portraying Anne of Cleves in the Showtime series The Tudors in 2009.
Early life
Stone was born at Buckland Hospital in Dover, Kent, and spent her teenage years in Ashill, a small village in Devon. She is the third of four children born to Richard and Wendy Stoker. Stone made her first public appearance at the Uffculme Comprehensive School—which she attended—in Uffculme, Devon, with a coverJackie Wilson’s 1957 song “Reet Petite”. Because of her dyslexia, Stone left school at age sixteen with only three GCSE qualifications. “It wasn’t that I was stupid. I’m just a little bit dyslexic and I wasn’t very academic. I’m more artistic”, she says. of
Stone grew up listening to a wide variety of music including 1960s and 1970s American R&B and soul music performed by such artists as Dusty Springfield and Aretha Franklin; as a result, she developed a soulful style of singing like her idols. “My first CD that I owned was Aretha Franklin: Greatest Hits. And I saw the advert on TV and it was just like little clips of her songs. I had no idea who she was—I was only like 10 so. I said, ‘Oh yeah, that looks really good’, so I wrote it down and I said to my mum, ‘Can I have that for Christmas?’ So she told my friend Dennis, who always gets me good music anyway, and he got that for me. So that was one of my first albums that I loved.” In 2001, at the age of fourteen, she auditioned for the BBC Television talent show Star for a Night in London singing Franklin’s 1968 “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” and Whitney Houston’s 1998 “It’s Not Right but It’s Okay”, eventually winning. She told MTV News: “I kind of clicked into soul music more than anything else because of the vocals. You’ve got to have good vocals to sing soul music and I always liked it ever since I was little.”
Music career
In 2002, Stone decided to back her ability by flying out from England for an audition in New York City with S-Curve Records CEO Steve Greenberg, where she performed Donna Summer’s 1979 “On the Radio”. Since then, she has appeared onstage with artists such as James Brown, Smokey Robinson, Donna Summer, Gladys Knight, Tom Jones, Robbie Williams, Melissa Etheridge, Rob Thomas, Rod Stewart, and Blondie. Stone is known for her trademark barefoot performances, which now is becoming a popular trend with many other artists.
The Soul Sessions (2003)
After being signed by S-Curve Records, Stone flew to Miami and Philadelphia to start work on her debut album, The Soul Sessions, released on 16 September 2003. She collaborated with people with solid credentials in the Miami soul scene such as Betty Wright, Benny Latimore, Timmy Thomas, and Little BeaverAngie Stone and The Roots. as well as contemporary acts
The album consists of little-known soul tracks by Wright, Franklin, Laura Lee, Bettye Swann, and others. Released in late 2003, it reached the top five on the UK Albums Chart as well as the top forty of the U.S. Billboard 200 chart. The lead single, “Fell in Love with a Boy”, a reworking of The White Stripes’ 2001 “Fell in Love with a Girl”, reached the top twenty of the UK Singles Chart, as did the second single, a cover version of Sugar Billy’s 1974 song “Super Duper Love (Are You Diggin’ on Me)”. The album eventually went triple platinum by the BPI in mid-April 2005 and gold by the RIAA in late March 2004.
Mind, Body & Soul (2004)
After achieving critical acclaim with The Soul Sessions, Stone recorded her second album—this time with new material—Mind, Body & Soul, released on 28 September 2004. She was quoted to say this was her real debut. “I think my singing is so much better on this album”, she says. It proved to be an even bigger success than her previous album, as it debuted at number one in the UK (breaking the record for the youngest female ever to top the UK Albums Chart, a record previously held by Avril Lavigne) and just missed the top ten of the U.S. Billboard 200, after peaking at number eleven. The lead single, “You Had Me”, became her biggest hit to date when it rose to number nine in the UK. Follow-up singles “Right to Be Wrong” and “Spoiled” both made the top forty, and “Don’t Cha Wanna Ride”, the top twenty. “Spoiled” landed just outside the top fifty of U.S. Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, peaking at number fifty-four. In early September 2005, Mind, Body & Soul was certified triple platinum by the BPI and platinum by the RIAA.
At the 2005 BRIT Awards, Stone was nominated for British Breakthrough Act, and won British Female Solo Artist and British Urban Act, entering the Guinness World Records as the youngest BRIT Award solo winner at age seventeen. She performed “Angels” with Robbie Williams during the ceremony, which took place on 9 February 2005. She also received a nomination for Best UK Act of the Year at the 2005 MOBO Awards as well as three nominations for the 2005 Grammy Awards—Best New Artist, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for “You Had Me”, and Best Pop Vocal Album for Mind, Body & Soul—, where she sang barefoot onstage with rock performer Melissa Etheridge, in tribute to blues-rock singer Janis Joplin. Their performance of “Cry Baby/Piece of My Heart” was released as a single and, through the aid of strong digital download sales, became Stone’s first single to enter the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, when it debuted and peaked at number thirty-two the week of 2 April 2005.
Introducing Joss Stone (2007)
Stone began work on her third studio album, Introducing Joss Stone, at Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas, in May 2006. Released on 12 March 2007, it involves production by Raphael Saadiq and collaborations with Lauryn Hill, Common, and Joi. Virgin Records describes the album as “an electrifying mix of warm vintage soul, ’70s-style R&B, Motown girl-group harmonies, and hip-hop grooves”. Stone herself describes it as “truly me. That’s why I’m calling it Introducing Joss Stone. These are my words, and this is who I am as an artist.” She also revealed on The Tavis Smiley Show that her break-up with Beau Dozier was a source of inspiration while writing Introducing Joss Stone.
The album debuted and peaked at number twelve on the UK Albums Chart, not managing to match the success of Stone’s two previous albums. It nevertheless debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 selling 118,000 copies in its first week, becoming the highest debut for a British solo female artist on the U.S. chart, surpassing the record previously held by Amy Winehouse with Back to Black (which in turn would later be outdone by Leona Lewis, whose album Spirit debuted at number one the week of 26 April 2008). Stone was nominated for the MOBO Award for Best UK Female in September 2007, but lost out to Winehouse.
“Tell Me ’bout It”, the album’s lead single, debuted and peaked at number twenty-eight on the UK Singles Chart—where it stayed for three weeks only—, and peaked at number eighty-three on the U.S Billboard Hot 100. The second single, “Tell Me What We’re Gonna Do Now”, a collaboration with rapper Common, failed to chart inside the UK top seventy-five, but made the top sixty-five of the U.S. Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. “Baby Baby Baby” was released digitally in December 2007 and physically in January 2008 as the third single.
In support of the album, Stone embarked on a North American tour which began on 27 April at Foxwoods Resort Casino in Ledyard, Connecticut, and ended on 13 June at the Filene Center in Vienna, Virginia, visiting sixteen cities in total including Philadelphia, San Francisco, Vancouver, Chicago, Toronto, New York, and Boston. Two months later, she went on a North American late-summer tour which kicked off on 27 August at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, California, and ended on 29 September at the Crossroads in Kansas City, Missouri, covering twelve cities—this time including Mexico City.
At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Stone shared the award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for her collaboration with Sly & the Family Stone, John Legend, and Van Hunt on “Family Affair”.
On 21 April 2008, Starpulse reported that Stone is going to launch a legal battle in a bid to leave EMI and free her of her current three-album deal with the record label. She says, “I’m not happy at all with EMI. I’ve spoken to my lawyers and am seeing what my options are. The industry is in a state and EMI are in a state, so I would rather work on other things.
Personal life
Stone began dating Beau Dozier—with whom she co-wrote the song “Spoiled”—, son of Motown producer Lamont Dozier (from the Holland-Dozier-Holland fame), in 2004. She moved from her native England into Dozier’s villa in the Los Angeles neighbourhood of Encino the following year. The two split up in November 2005.
Stone was the youngest woman on the 2006 Sunday Times Rich List—an annual list of the UK’s wealthiest people—with £6 million, and was also ranked number seventy-eight on Maxim’s 2007 Hot 100.
Filmography
- Snappers (2008)
- Eragon (2006)
- American Dreams (2005)