Joss Stone Biography:
Joss Stone was born April 11, 1987 in Dover, England and grew up in the semi-rural county of Devon and county of Kent; she is the second youngest of four siblings. The first record to seize her young imagination was Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You," but Aretha Franklin's Greatest Hits was the first album she ever bought after seeing it advertised on TV. Joss' first public performance was a harbinger of things to come: In a Fifties-themed school variety show, she sang "Reete Petite," the rollicking Jackie Wilson hit from 1957.
In 2001, when Joss was 14, she auditioned for the BBC TV talent show Star for A Night. "All you had to do was send a letter, not even a tape, and they'd send you the details of the audition," she explains. "So when my mum and I got to the studio in London, there was a massive queue of hundreds of people trying to get on this program. I sang Aretha's 'A Natural Woman' and 'It's Not Right But It's Okay' by Whitney Houston."
"I found out that I'd won some months later, when the camera crew showed up in Devon to tell me the news: 'Congratulations, you're going to be on Star for A Night!' For the broadcast, I sang 'On The Radio' by Donna Summer. It wasn't my choice and it didn't sound very good, but that's how I got my managers. Then I sang for a charity show, and when Freshwater Hughes Management showed the video to the Boilerhouse Boys (London producers Andy Dean and Ben Wolfe), they said 'Steve Greenberg has got to hear this."
Steve Greenberg is the founder and CEO of S-Curve Records. Over the years, in addition to discovering such hit acts as Hanson ("Mmm Bop") and Baha Men ("Who Let the Dogs Out"), he expressed his love for rhythm & blues, soul and disco by producing such historical sets as the Grammy-nominated nine-disc The Complete Stax/Volt Singles (1959-1968) and the five-disc "Sugar Hill Records Story." In December 2001, Greenberg received a call from the Boilerhouse Boys "telling me that they had just heard the greatest singer they'd ever heard from their country." He flew Joss to New York for an audition in which she sang to backing tracks of classic soul songs: "Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding, "Midnight Train to Georgia" by Gladys Knight & the Pips, and "A Natural Woman" by Aretha Franklin.
 |
| English Singer Joss Stone |
Their initial idea was to make an album of contemporary songs, with Joss co-writing as many as possible, and one of the first people contacted out was the Grammy-winning, Miami-based singer/songwriter/producer Betty Wright. "Betty is not just a classic performer of Seventies hits like 'Clean Up Woman'," Greenberg notes. "She is a contemporary creative force who continues to make vital music today."
In the spring of 2003, Joss and her collaborators (including Greenberg, Wright, and co-producer Mike Mangini) set to work on the proposed album. But one of their first recordings, a cover of the obscure Carla Thomas song "I've Fallen In Love With You" turned their efforts in an entirely different direction.
Steve Greenberg: "A Carla Thomas cover didn't really fit on the album we were then planning. But Joss' performance of it was fantastic. Meanwhile, Joss' talent was evolving by leaps and bounds. So we thought we'd up the ante and have her record live in the studio with a real live r&b band, doing a whole set of classic and obscure soul songs. In addition to completing her album of new material."
Steve suggested to Betty that they reunite some of the key players of Seventies Miami, even though more than 20 years had passed since they'd made music together. "I asked Betty Wright, 'Can we get Little Beaver on guitar?' She said, 'Sure, give me a couple of days.' 'Can we get Timmy Thomas on organ?' Same answer. 'Can we get Latimore on piano?' Same answer.
"I didn't realize that Betty hadn't seen or spoken to some of these people in a decade or more. But she went out and found them, Little Beaver was working for Amtrak, Timmy Thomas was a college administrator, and sold them on the idea of putting the band back together for this project."
Greenberg adds: "There's an element of the Buena Vista Social Club in The Soul Sessions, because we've put together the classic musicians of a certain music scene that no longer exists. Over the years, there's been a lot of attention paid and rightfully so to the great musicians of Motown, of Memphis, of New Orleans. But Miami has been an overlooked wellspring of classic soul music. It's our hope that The Soul Sessions record will allow that scene and these great musicians to receive their due."
 |
| Joss Stone |
"In making this record, Joss is paying homage to those who came before her, a necessary rite before she expands on the lexicon of soul with her own material."
Buoyed by the results of the Miami sessions, Joss then journeyed north to Philadelphia, where the most acclaimed live hip-hop band of today, the Roots, were happy to back Joss on a radical reworking of the White Stripes' "Fell In Love With A Girl." Joss still sounds somewhat awed by the experience. "I was actually singing live with the band, that was quite scary! You know those stories you hear about people who become famous, how they're really pretentious and bigheaded? None of these great musicians was like that at all. They were all completely supportive and down-to-earth."
"At first, just hearing my own recorded voice was the weirdest thing. But with the experience of the studio, now it just comes quite naturally. When I'm singing, I don't want to be thinking about it too much."
Do the bright lights of stardom beckon our cheerful, unpretentious lass from the English countryside? "I just want to sing and write songs," says Joss. "That's what I like to do and all I really know how to do. If it does happen, well, then it happens. I'd try not be thinking "ohmigod, I've sold a million records," but just continue to be the person I enjoy being."
Source: Moono.com
 |
| Joss Stone Pictures Gallery |
 |
| Singer Joss Stone |
 |
| Joss Stone 2011 |
 |
| Joss Stone Wallpapers |
 |
| Joss Stone in Bikini |
 |
| Joss Stone |
Post a Comment