JamesStarJr said:

Oh. Looks like she's been dropped by her label. Well. At least she has an established international fan base. She should do fine. Joss is Joss, its to my understanding shes one of the best selling female artist in the Uk. And its odd to hear people always place value on sales and fame when clearly this is supposed to be about people who like great authentic music? Naturally they are not going to be mega rich and naturally they will probably have to tour til their dead its the nature of the art, I thought we knew that.

She parted ways with EMI after the company pushed back the release of her Colour Me Free album. A legal battle ensued when she filed a lawsuit against EMI asking to terminate her contract. EMI shipped the album with scant promotion and publicity. She left the company in 2010 and formed Ston'd Records last year.

...

[Edited 7/5/12 17:55pm]

I was enraptured by this cover. Listen up.

Why Joss Paid For Her Freedom

July 2012

How many pop stars would be delighted to lose two million pounds? The only one we know is red-haired beauty Joss Stone, who has persuaded recording giant EMI to tear up her three-year contract, worth over seven million, and so allow her to sing what she likes.

"I'm paying back two million,- says 25-year-old Joss. "I just wanted out of the record deal because it was driving me in completely the wrong direction.

"To me, music has to be about freedom. It's the most important thing in my life -” more important than money. I was happy to hand over everything just to get free. I've never been motivated by money. So long as I have enough to get by, I'm happy.

Now Joss has started her own label, Stone'd Records, which is bringing out her new studio album, Soul Sessions, Volume Two, later this month.

It's the sequel to her first-ever album in 2003, which set her on the road to pop stardom -” and sales of over 12 million records and a 10 million pound fortune.

"Freedom to produce the music I like, is what's really important,- Joss says. "I don't own anything flash and I don't really take holidays.-

Joss also made her previous album, LP1, with her own money -” and it went platinum in less than a week. But that's nothing new for Joss.

Since being discovered at the age of 14, the Devon-born diva has had five massive hit albums, six Grammy nominations and at 19 was the youngest woman on the UK's annual Rich List.

Pop legends like Sting, Elton John and David Bowie are among her fans and she's sung duets with Mick Jagger and Robbie Williams.

The rise and rise of Joss Stone started while she was a schoolgirl living in a remote Devon village in Britain's west country and wondering what she was going to do with her life.
She was just 13 when while watching A TV talent show called Star For A Night, Joss decided she could do better, passed the audition and won the contest.

No one could believe that such a young girl could possess such a mature powerful and soulful voice. "I just open my mouth and it's there,- was Joss's only explanation.

Not even her music teacher at her Devon comprehensive school knew he had a major soul talent in his class. "I never sang in public or at school concerts -” I was too shy to put myself forward. Most people at school thought I was too lazy and unambitious to do anything special.-

Winning Star For A Night changed all that. A tape of her entry found its way across the Atlantic to pop producer Steve Steenberg who, after a four-minute audition, signed Joss on the spot.

Her first album, Soul Sessions, produced by veteran R&B star Betty Wright was an instant international hit. Tom Cruise became a devoted fan and Elton John insisted that Joss and her band performed at his Oscar night party.

"It was cool duetting with Elton,- Joss says. "But I'm not an evening-gown person. I couldn't wait to get out of those high heels and back into a T-shirt and jeans.-

When Joss made her first soul album, seasoned session musicians just couldn't believe that it was the first time the schoolgirl had been in a recording studio. "She sings like a mature woman who knows all about life,- says Ahmir Thompson who arranged some of the numbers.

Strangely, despite all the adulation, Joss has a very low opinion of her achievements. "I do seem to annoy people,- she says. "I always seem to be on the worst-dressed list and I seem to get people very angry -” I'm the sort of person who deals with conflict head on.

"Take the record contract for instance -” at first lawyers were involved and it got ugly and went nowhere. So I just dealt with the whole thing myself and sorted it out in no time.-

Until recently her mother Wendy was her manager and her chaperone but now Joss tours with a small team of musicians and technicians. "I still ring mum every day. We argue all the time, but in a good way, like best mates,- Joss says.

Her father still oversees her finances and Joss says she doesn't know the details. "I'm not interested in fame and money,- she says. "The only big thing I have bought is a house in Devon.

"My parents live in the same village. It's where my roots are and I hope to move there for good one day.-

After a forthcoming tour, Joss plans to make an album of original songs. "There will be some reggae tracks and some hip-hop influences, but it will still be soulful. I just can't sing without soul.''

http://www.timesofoman.co...px?fid=618

Bravo 2 her............

scriptgirl said:

She hasn't achieved success because she's not very good and she doesn't sound authentic. Old Girl tries to hard. Who can we sue re false advertising re Joss and Soul being mentioned in the same sentence?

This right here.

Identity said:

The Soul Sessions Volume 2 track list:

1. ''I Got The...''
2. ''(For God's Sake) Give More Power To The People''
3. ''While You're Out Looking for Sugar''
4. ''Sideway Shuffle''
5. '' Don't Want To Be with Nobody But You''
6. ''Teardrops''
7. ''Stoned Out Of My Mind''
8. ''The Love We Had (Stays On My Mind)''
9. ''The High Road''
10. ''Pillow Talk''
11. ''Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye''

Oh just hell no.

JoeBala said:

johnart said:

Joss can sing. She hasn't enjoyed consistent awesome albums but I don't get all the hate that goes her way.

Cause she is white singing black music.

Absolutely not.

Either you have soul or you don't. You can't fake it and in my opinion, she doesn't have any. Yes, she can sing but damn, please stop trying to be something you aren't. My two cents.

I like what i've heard so far from Soul Sessions 2. I think it's better

than the last project.

Lyric video for "While You're Out..."

I think she is way more soulful than Rihanna, Beyonce and many of the "Divas" young people listen to nowadays.

I like her, and her music.

Review:

Joss Stone
The Soul Sessions Vol.2
(S-Curve)
Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars

Source: American Songwriter.com

A decade removed from 2003’s five-million-selling debut that put her on the music map, Stone returns to that well with a similarly styled batch of generally obscure 60s soul tunes brought up to date with contemporary production, if not arrangements. Like her revelatory reading of the White Stripes’ “Fell in Love with a Girl” from the first set, Stone brings her throaty R&B to the Broken Bells’ “The High Road” in one of this album’s finest performances.

She also has fun romping through the heartbreak of “(1-2-3-4-5-6-7) Count the Days” (originally a hit for Patti Labelle & the Bluebells), Sylvia’s sexed-up, feathery “Pillow Talk,” the tough socio-political fist in the air of the Chi-Lites’ “(For God’s Sake) Give More Power to the People” and the Honey Cone’s “While You’re Out Looking for Sugar.”

Stone’s in fine, strutting voice but the sensitive hesitation of a new singer tackling soul gems ten years ago is replaced by confidence that leads to a tendency to oversing as her star has risen. Still, with seldom-covered nuggets from Labi Siffre and Linda Lewis getting the Stone treatment, she and her producers have structured a pretty terrific hour-long, 15-track listen that proves the UK singer is serious about her classic American R&B.

Review

The Arts Desk

On her sixth album Joss Stone does what she does very well so the only question is whether it’s worth doing. When she first appeared with volume one of The Soul Sessions, tackling songs such as Aretha Franklin’s “All the King’s Horses” and Carla Thomas’s “I’ve Fallen in Love with You”, it was generally acknowledged that, while she was vocally proficient, she was only 15 and hadn’t really lived enough to inhabit raw soul scorchers.

A decade later few would argue she’s not been through the mill - battling EMI and narrowly avoiding a kidnapping, amongst much else – and her voice is, indeed, a funkier, more emotive instrument. So there are no quibbles there. Whether ripping into The Chi-Lites’ “(For God’s Sake) Give More Power to the People” or rendering a smoochy, simple take of “Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye”, the latter perhaps the album’s finest moment, her voice delivers the songs with more southern US sass than a girl from Devon has any right to possess.

Stone recorded the album in Nashville with a very tasty cast of session men including Ernie Isley of the Isley Brothers, the man who played the guitar solo on “Summer Breeze”, and Muscle Shoals keyboard original Clayton Ivey, who played on Wilson Pickett’s rhythm & blues staple “Mustang Sally”.

This ensemble has lots of fun delivering requisite funk, Hammond, wah-wah, and groove on songs such as Womack & Womack’s “Teardrops” and Eddie Floyd’s “I Don’t Wanna Be With Nobody But You”. Given the multi-millions Stone has sold, there’s clearly a huge market for these efficiently handled retro rejigs but, to my ears, it all sounds a bit pointless, a bit blandly Later With Jools Holland, a bit ordinary.

In many ways the bloke in your local pub attacking similar material with cack-handed zest is doing something more interesting, as is Stone - sometimes - when she does her own material.

Listen to the FULL album on itunes for free:

http://search.itunes.appl...=JossStone

just listened to it I like what I heard

SoulAlive said:

just listened to it I like what I heard

I'm diggin' it too. I'll definately be picking this up next Tuesday. Best new release I've heard so far this year.

kitbradley said:

SoulAlive said:

just listened to it I like what I heard

I'm diggin' it too. I'll definately be picking this up next Tuesday. Best new release I've heard so far this year.

This is a solid album,with some truly soulful sounds.I'm buying a copy on Tuesday.

tritoncin said:

I think she is way more soulful than Rihanna, Beyonce and many of the "Divas" young people listen to nowadays.

she's doing the type of gritty,authentic soul music that those other artists wouldn't dare record.

''While You're Out..'' behind-the-scenes recording footage.

The deluxe edition will include four bonus songs, and they are:

''First Taste of Hurt"

''One Love In My Lifetime''

''Nothing Takes The Place Of You''
''(1-2-3-4-5-6-7) Count The Days''

Identity said:

I can't fantom why she has not achieved the same level of success as, say, Adele. I thought the Raphael Saadiq-produced album a few years back would firmly establish her as a great singer.

Well it ain't because you don't keep bumping this thread, LOL.

I like Joss Stone and will give this a listening.

RodeoSchro said:

Identity said:

I can't fantom why she has not achieved the same level of success as, say, Adele. I thought the Raphael Saadiq-produced album a few years back would firmly establish her as a great singer.

Well it ain't because you don't keep bumping this thread, LOL.

I realize the alternative could be worse---another ''Katherine Jackson is missing'' thread.

so far,"Teardrops" is my favorite song on this album

Identity said:

RodeoSchro said:

Well it ain't because you don't keep bumping this thread, LOL.

I realize the alternative could be worse---another ''Katherine Jackson is missing'' thread.

LOL.

Although she falls back into her old habit of over singing quite often, this is a collection fans would be proud to own as she infuses soul and intensity into these revisited Soul Sessions . Got my copy yesterday and diggin' it from the first track to the last.

I got my copy yesterday,too Really enjoying this album.It's exactly the type of warm, soulful,breezy album that I need right now.