From today's NY Times:
October 2, 2003
Soul Music's New Face: 16, Blond and British
By LOLA OGUNNAIKE
eople always think I'm some 50-year-old black woman," the singer Joss Stone said recently. This, of course, would not be worth noting if Ms. Stone were anywhere near 50 or anywhere near black. But with her peaches-and-cream complexion and long blond hair, Ms. Stone, 16, is a lot more Britney than Whitney â?? that is, until she begins to sing. Husky, preternaturally mature, her voice sounds as if it were bred in a black Southern church, not manufactured in a studio.
"My manager likes to play a trick on people," Ms. Stone said, her British accent seeming decidedly at odds with her Malibu Barbie visage. "He'll put on my CD, and I'll hide in another room, and then he'll bring me in, and everyone is shocked because they're expecting me to be a black and older." At this point, Ms. Stone began to chuckle. "Maybe I look more like a pop singer than I do a soul singer," she said. "I don't know."
Veering miles away from the sugary Top 40 confections favored by many of her peers, Ms. Stone's debut album, "The Soul Sessions" (S-Curve Records), released earlier this month, is a collection of covers, most of them obscure 1970's soul songs like Laura Lee's "Dirty Man" and Bettye Swann's "Victim of a Foolish Heart." Betty Wright, who had the 1971 hit "Clean Up Woman," helped produce Ms. Stone's album. The singer's backup band is made up of veterans like Latimore, Little Beaver and Timmy Thomas. "TRL"-bound they are not, which suits Ms. Stone just fine.
"I like some of the pop stuff," she said, "but it doesn't touch me like soul does."
At a recent show at Joe's Pub in the East Village, she sang of heartache and betrayal, torrid love affairs and busted unions, experiences that Ms. Stone, given her tender age, is expected to know little about. Her rendition of the 1975 Isley Brothers hit "For the Love of You" prompted one audience member, Karen St. Hilaire, to wail, "Sing it girl!"
"She sings like someone who has really experienced life," Ms. St. Hilaire later said of Ms. Stone's performance, "and it's surprising because it's like, `what does this girl know?' "
Ms. Stone is growing used to this reaction. "Everyone seems to think that you have to be a certain age or come from a certain place to feel pain," she said. "Trust me, I have emotions. I'm 16. I'm a teenager. Emotions are so much bigger now."
Ms. Stone, who was born Joscelyn Eve Stoker in Dover, England ("My label didn't think Stoker was strong enough"), recalls a not-so-distant childhood filled with music, most of it American soul and R&B. "One of the first albums I owned was Aretha Franklin's greatest hits," she said, beaming. "I played it over and over. I loved it."
Two years ago, on a whim, she auditioned for the BBC television talent show "Star for a Night." Only 14, she sang Aretha Franklin's "Natural Woman" and won. Soon after, she was signed to S-Curve.
"It was all given to me on a plate; that's why I feel like I was meant to do it," said Ms. Stone, who still lives with her family in Devon, England. (Her mother is her co-manager.) "It's not that I don't work hard, but there are people that go to audition after audition and haven't gotten to this point. I know I'm blessed."
Some have suggested that more than talent, the blessing of a face worthy of a Neutrogena Clean and Clear campaign is what has helped propel her fledgling career.
"Girls who sing as well as she does are a dime a dozen on `Amateur Night at the Apollo,' but blond hair and a British accent makes her a marketer's dream," said Elizabeth Mendez Berry, a contributing editor at Honey Magazine, aimed at young black women.
Ms. Stone acknowledged that her looks may have helped her along the way. "I suppose if I was 100 million pounds, I wouldn't have gotten a record deal," she said. "But none of that should matter. It's supposed to be about the music. It shouldn't have come to the point that everything is so visual."
In some ways, Ms. Stone argued, her skin color could be viewed as a hindrance.
"I've had a lot of people say to me, `you'll never get on black radio or urban radio,' and I'm like, `I'll get on every single station that I want, thank you very much,' " she said defiantly. "When people say things like that, it makes me want to fight even more."