Were it not for the fact that, over the past year, she’s sold more than two million albums, duetted live with Smokey Robinson and Gladys Knight, performed before just about everyone at Sir Elton John’s famed Oscar-night party and, along with her mum, been invited to brunch at Tom Cruise’s house, you’d say that Joss Stone was pretty much like any other 17-year-old girl from rural England. Here she is showing me her new nose piercing: “Pretty, isn’t it? Which is lucky, ’cause I can’t get it out unless I pull really hard. And that makes it bleed.” And then there’s the tattoo of a flower on her ankle, a replacement for the £20 job she had done under-age back in Devon, but which “kind of like fell off. Weird! So I had this one done in Miami. Have you got any? No? Well, you should get one, even if it’s just teeny-weeny. Go on! Live a little!”
When she giggles, which is often, Stone turns into the sunniest-available version of everyteenager, someone you might find hanging out with her mates or winding up her parents in any nice house in any nice street across the land. And that’s both a strength and a blessing, because she’ll need to stay grounded if she’s to survive the rollercoaster that, increasingly, is her daily life. For as well as being the kind of slightly flaky, hippy-chick daughter (she’s nicknamed Joss Stick by friends) any mum or dad would love, worry about, but ultimately be very proud of, she’s arguably the best white female soul voice to emerge in Britain since Dusty Springfield more than 40 years ago. She’ll take issue with the “white” element of that statement, should anyone say it to her face, of course. “Who says soul only has one colour?” she’ll demand, playing with her hair and swinging her always-bare feet back and forth.
But everyone is surprised when she opens her mouth to sing. They certainly were at the Motown 45th Anniversary Concert, at which she had been invited to perform. “I’m not saying that the crew and some of the backstage people were racist,” she says of the taped-for-TV special, recorded in Los Angeles earlier this year. “But when I turned up at rehearsals, I could sense a lot of them thinking, ‘Who on earth’s that?’ Why wouldn’t they? I was just this random girl.” All that changed when she first ran through I Second That Emotion with Robinson, though. “Suddenly, everyone was like, ‘So you’re that white kid we’ve been hearing about!’ I couldn’t believe the number of people who came up claiming that they recommended me to the organisers, and that if it weren’t for them I wouldn’t be there, wouldn’t be anywhere, wouldn’t even have been born. My friend Amy was with me, and we were just cracking up at it all.”
The annual VH1 Divas extravaganza in Las Vegas was the more inspiring occasion, with Stone sharing the stage with Gladys Knight, Debbie Harry and Cyndi Lauper. “All of whom were amazing in their own way, but oh, to meet - let alone sing - with Gladys... I totally adore her. She has the most beautiful smile. It lights up the entire room. And the power and control in that voice! I learnt so much that day, just from being in her presence.” But the coolest thing for Stone must be that Knight admired her right back, and was fulsome to all and sundry about this British rookie’s precocious talent and mature attitude. What she was responding to, of course, is the very same thing that has moved any of us to buy her debut album, The Soul Sessions. While almost all other R&B or soul-inspired young aspirants around deliver performances that ape the technique-over-content showboating and histrionics of, say, Mariah Carey or R. Kelly, here is someone so relaxed and old-school that, blindfold-tested, you’d swear she was from 30 years ago.
Stone’s story begins not in Detroit, New York or LA, but beyond the white cliffs of Dover. And she isn’t really Joss Stone at all. Joscelyn Stoker is the third of four children born to parents Wendy and Richard, who lived in that gateway town until their second daughter was eight. Seeking a better quality of life, they then moved to rural Devon, and have been based in the village of Ashill ever since. Youthful and pop-minded, the home they created there reverberated to music - either Anita Baker, Whitney Houston or Tracy Chapman (mum) or The Jam, The Clash and Devo (dad). Her siblings have all gone in their own directions. Daniel, 24, is a free spirit, not academic, and travels frequently. Lucy, 18, has just completed A-levels, is studious and serious, and about to start law school. And Harry, 14, “has a bit of everything going for him. He’s bright, sporty and plays a bit of guitar, too.” None, she insists, envies her success. “They’re far too busy getting on with their own stuff.”
Her own younger self, meanwhile? “Always, on my school report card, I’d get, ‘Must try harder’, or, ‘Joscelyn has a problem with remembering,’ which I do, ’cause I’m a little bit dyslexic.” Not a natural student, then. In fact, a pretty unwilling one. “I felt that most of what we were learning was a waste of time,” says Stone, repeating the mantra of the disaffected young anywhere, any time. “I wasn’t a horrible child, but I probably was a pain in the arse, even if not deliberately. I’d argue a lot with the teachers. I feel sorry for them now, in retrospect. I apologise for making them put up with that.” Yes, of course, she knew she could sing. “But there’s always one kid in every school who’s seen as the most gifted musically and whom everyone’s in awe of, and it wasn’t me, which was fine. The thing is, I’m completely uncompetitive.”
Even so, despite shyness and this slacker tendency, the 14-year-old Joss was moved to audition for a TV talent contest, Star for a Night. Even now, she can’t explain why. But her version of Donna Summer’s On the Radio, delivered in an already preternaturally strong and soulful voice, seduced a panel comprising Barbara Windsor, an Atomic Kitten, and Sonia from EastEnders, and she was declared the winner. In fairytale fashion, this led to her being courted by management companies not just here but in the US. And it was an American, Steve Greenberg, the man behind pre-teen band Hanson, who eventually signed her. Soon, the surname was gone (“And I was fine with that, because Joss Stone is who I am on stage, and she’s more confident than me, and has bigger hair and a bigger personality”), and his charge was on her way to Miami for a first experience of studio recording.
Smart man that he is, Greenberg realised that the new proliferation of shows like Pop Idol and Fame Academy would throw up increasing numbers of success-hungry youngsters, and that the “on sale” racks in record stores would soon be awash with their product. He steered Stone away from generic British pop, and chose as a producer the veteran, Southern soul star Betty Wright, best known here for the minor hits Clean-Up Woman (1972) and Shoorah Shoorah (1975). It proved an inspired pairing, with her hiring of local, mostly older musicians lending an appropriately raw and grainy edge to tracks (among them a sublime, gender-altered cover of the White Stripes’ Fell in Love with a Girl) chosen to showcase Stone’s timewarp voice and relaxed delivery. In fact, it was so inspired that Greenberg decided to release a taster for the work-in-progress. That was The Soul Sessions, put out quietly last autumn in America, and in the UK this January, and an unexpected chart success in both.
“It was just a... thing,” shrugs Stone, seeming genuinely unable to understand what all the fuss has been about. “It wasn’t even a proper album. It was just a little blip in my life which, for some reason, turned into a big blip. But this is my first real album, and this is what gives the best indication yet of who I am and what I can do.” The “this” she refers to is Mind, Body & Soul, again recorded in Miami and produced largely by Wright, but with a more contemporary bite beneath the vintage sound. “I really like it,” she says, then changes her mind in the same instant. “Well, actually I think some of it’s rubbish, but I’m really self-critical and think a lot of what I do is useless, which can be pretty depressing. Everyone else seems to think it’s great, which is the main thing. I like it more than the last one, for sure.” Such candour is rare in what has become Stone’s industry, and I wonder if it has been suggested to her that she have media training. “Oh yeah, they tried that, but within ten minutes I was having arguments with the lady. I mean, she was nice and everything, but I can’t have someone putting words in my mouth.”
Even without the ability to produce glib soundbites at the drop of a hat, there is no doubt that her second album will further enhance both Stone’s reputation and, yes, her bank balance. “It’s all in trust until I’m 25,” she says, “or was. I’ve got it down to 23 now, and am working on 21.” There have been no big financial splurges so far. “A house is all I want to buy, in due course. Somewhere near to my parents [her father runs his own business importing dried foodstuffs, while her mother travels with her constantly] and where my best friend Bonnie and her brother Robbie can stay with me. A nice vibe is what I’ll be looking for when the time comes. Mum and Dad’s place is like two houses knocked together, and I’ve always felt this bad energy at the bottom of the stairs, just inside the door. I don’t want to get a place where there’s anything like that going on.”
Being 17 now, she could drive if she chose to, or, more pertinently, if there were ever any free time in which to take lessons. “It’s ridiculous, ’cause I actually own two cars, neither of which I had to buy. One’s a sweet little Mini, which was from the record company. It’s yellow with a white roof, and I’d like to get some flowers painted on it. The other came from Audi after I did this corporate gig for them. It’s a TT, metallic blue because they don’t do purple or pink, either of which I’d have preferred. Quite why they gave it to me I don’t know, but hey, it’s very nice that they did.” But far more exciting, judging from the explosion of giggles that accompanies her announcement of it, is the news that she has recently found a new boyfriend. “He’s a musician, lives in LA, is on the record, and is just the nicest, nicest person (my mum loves him, to the point that she’s an embarrassment) and completely gorgeous as well.”
All of which represents progress, “because I’ve a history of being attracted to guys who turn out to be arseholes. I’ve found it very hard in the past to find someone nice who’ll let me get on with my job without getting resentful or making me feel bad. This guy understands, and he’s just so sweet. Lovely. Beyond handsome. No, I’m not telling you his name.” So yes, she agrees, she’s growing up. “My situation is very intense these days, with the schedule and all the travelling, and you can’t stay a little girl in among it all.” But neither does she want to become older than her years, which is why, after all the showbiz events she’d performed at already this year, it was a relief to get down to Glastonbury earlier in the summer.
“I played the jazz stage, then the pyramid stage, which I didn’t like as much - the audience is so far away.” In a bid to remedy that situation, she jumped over the footlights during her first song, and walked out to where the fans were waiting for her, arms outstretched. “And do you know what happened? Somebody grabbed my arse, leaving me struggling both to keep a straight face and to continue to sing. So could I just say to whoever that was, ‘Very, very funny, mate, because I did think it was hilarious at the time. But don’t you ever, ever even think of doing it again.’”
Mind, Body & Soul is released by Relentless Records on September 27, and is preceded by the single You Had Me, out on September 13
