Joss Stone didn't grow up in Mississippi, Alabama, Detroit or Chicago; she wasn't the daughter of a pastor, and she didn't sing every Sunday in a Baptist church. She didn't develop her love for gospel music while watching from a choir pew as the preacher hollered beneath the glory of God. Far from it.
The world's next soul music star hails from Dover, England. The soul and R&B genre struck her fancy while listening to it in the living room with her parents, not because she was raised eating, sleeping and breathing it.
But for a woman who claims to have forayed into soul music simply because she fancied it, Joss Stone is a knockout of a vocalist with full-bodied lungs and a style that teems with charisma. Oh, and she's only 19. That's right, today's biggest soul music star is a British white girl who wouldn't be able to buy at beer at the Hotung pub if she were a Tufts student.
On what is already her third studio album, Joss Stone is reinventing herself and re-"introducing" herself. Stone wrote the lyrics for each of the album's 13 songs, and with the help of neo-soul producer Raphael Saadiq, she has taken a step towards creating a more personal sound that blends hip-hop rhythms with the old-school soul and R&B of Aretha Franklin, Al Green and James Brown.
"Introducing Joss Stone" isn't all the way there yet, but it's an auspicious start for this young artist whose voice and attitude seem to effortlessly transcend the superficial barriers of race.
First of all, Joss Stone wants to tell us that she's all grown up. Stone co-wrote and co-produced each song, and she has said she feels this is the first album that is a completely accurate representation of her, musically and lyrically.
On the album's funky single, "Tell Me 'Bout It," Stone comes in with an overtly sexual demand: "I need a little lovin' at least two times a day / So when I call you, boy, you better run here right away."
With the sass and candor of any great soul singer, Stone has wasted no time in showing us that she is an adult now; she's ready to deal with serious topics. No more covering the White Stripes' whimsical rocker "Fell in Love With a Girl," and no more recording pandering pop songs like the 2004 hit "You Had Me."
Stone blends old-school soul with modern beats and instrumentation on the track "Baby, Baby, Baby," one of the album's feel-good funk tunes. The song borrows its title from a 1967 Aretha Franklin composition and uses a female backup vocal section in a manner that mirrors Aretha's old approach. Injecting a modern touch into traditional soul, Stone comes away with one of the album's best tracks.
Another big success comes on "Girl They Won't Believe It," a glorious romp set to an upbeat swing that smacks of old O'Jays hits. As her rich voice glides in, Stone sounds identical to the old Aretha Franklin, back when a listener could feel her comfortable smile by just listening to the voice on the record.
Stone also hits her stride on a couple of ballads, especially "Bruised But Not Broken," perhaps the most explicit reference to her recent break-up with boyfriend of two years, Beau Dozier. This song treads the line between being heart-wrenching and a saccharine bore. As the strings build and the electric guitar contributes pensive chords on the downbeats, what do saves this tune from cheesiness overdrive? Well, Joss Stone's voice, of course. Her emotions are never more apparent than on this song; it proves to be a beautifully wounded but also joyous tale of after-the-rain resilience.
Unfortunately, "Introducing Joss Stone" gets bogged down in a number of spots, particularly on tunes that lack dynamic climaxes; these numbers have weak choruses in which Stone cheats herself out of the opportunity to showcase her killer pipes. On both "Proper Nice" and "Bad Habit," the songs never really hit a high point. They simply drift from heavily layered verses to equally thickly produced choruses without building or falling.
One especially disappointing song is "Music," a tribute to what Stone has called her only unconditional love. Sadly, the music in this particular song is nothing to fall in love with. The chilled-out drumbeat stays almost identical between the verses and choruses, and the other instruments don't crescendo either. The only gratifying part comes at the end, when Lauryn Hill cameos with a rap verse. The drumbeat changes, as do the chords, and Hill hits us with almost a minute of intense rhymes that discuss the cerebral, emotional and even scientific elements of music.
Joss Stone has not made a perfect album, but she has taken a bold and heartfelt step towards playing music. The throwback neo-soul of the album is, at its best, a magnificent update to the classic sounds of the '60s and '70s.
