Joss Stone

Joscelyn Eve Stoker (born 11 April 1987), known professionally as Joss Stone, is an English singer, songwriter and actress. She rose to prominence in late 2003 with her multi-platinum debut album, The Soul Sessions, which made the 2004 Mercury Prize shortlist. Her second album, Mind Body & Soul (2004), topped the UK Albums Chart and spawned the top-ten single "You Had Me", Stone's most successful single on the UK Singles Chart to date. Both the album and single received one nomination at the 2005 Grammy Awards, while Stone herself was nominated for Best New Artist, and in an annual BBC poll of music critics, Sound of 2004, was ranked fifth as a predicted breakthrough act of 2004. She became the youngest British female singer to top the UK Albums Chart. Stone's third album, Introducing Joss Stone, released in March 2007, achieved gold record status by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and yielded the second-ever highest debut for a British female solo artist on the Billboard 200, and became Stone's first top-five album in the US.

Her two subsequent albums, Colour Me Free! and LP1, released in 2009 and 2011, respectively, also reached the top-ten on the Billboard 200 and saw moderate success worldwide. Throughout her career, Stone has sold 15 million records worldwide, establishing herself as one of the best-selling soul artists of the 2000s, and the best-selling British artists of her time. Her first three albums have sold over 2,722,000 copies in the US, while her first two albums have sold over 2 million copies in the UK.

Stone has earned several awards including two Brit Awards and one Grammy Award out of five nominations. She made her film acting debut in 2006 with the fantasy adventure film Eragon, and made her television debut portraying Anne of Cleves in the Showtime series The Tudors in 2009. Stone was the youngest woman on the 2006 Sunday Times Rich List—an annual list of the UK's wealthiest people—with £6 million. In 2012, her net worth was estimated to be £10 million, making her the fifth richest British musician under 30. Her sixth studio album, The Soul Sessions Vol. 2 (2012), became her fourth consecutive album to reach the top-ten on the Billboard 200. She followed this with Water for Your Soul (2015), a reggae inspired album which reached number one on the US Reggae Albums chart, and became the best-selling reggae album of the year in the country. Her eighth studio album, Never Forget My Love, was released in 2022, followed by her first Christmas album, Merry Christmas, Love, in the same year.

Early life

Joscelyn Eve Stoker was born on 11 April 1987 at Buckland Hospital in Dover, Kent, and spent her teenage years in Ashill, a small village near Cullompton in Devon. She is the third of four children born to Wendy (née Skillin) and Richard Stoker. Her father owns a fruit and nut import–export business Western Commodities; her mother worked as Stone's manager until October 2004. Stone attended the Uffculme Comprehensive School, in Uffculme, Devon, where she first performed with a cover version of Jackie Wilson's 1957 song "Reet Petite". Stone has dyslexia and left school at age sixteen with three GCSE qualifications.

Stone grew up listening to a wide variety of music including 1960s and 1970s American R&B and soul music performed by such artists as Dusty Springfield and Aretha Franklin. As a result, she developed a soulful style of singing like her idols. "My first CD that I owned was Aretha Franklin: Greatest Hits. And I saw the advert on TV and it was just like little clips of her songs. I had no idea who she was—I was only like 10 so. I said, 'Oh yeah, that looks really good', so I wrote it down and I said to my mum, 'Can I have that for Christmas?' So she told my friend Dennis, who always gets me good music anyway, and he got that for me. So that was one of my first albums that I loved." She would later tell MTV News: "I kind of clicked into soul music more than anything else because of the vocals. You've got to have good vocals to sing soul music and I always liked it ever since I was little."

Career

2001–2003: Beginnings and The Soul Sessions

In 2001, aged 13, Stone auditioned for the BBC Television talent show Star for a Night in London, singing Aretha Franklin's 1968 Goffin-King hit "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" and Whitney Houston's 1999 single, "It's Not Right but It's Okay". After passing her audition, she sang Donna Summer's "On the Radio" for the broadcast, and eventually won the contest. She also appeared on and won Steps to the Stars (a TV programme hosted by H & Claire of the group Steps). Stone then performed on a charity show, where she drew the attention of the Boilerhouse Boys, composed of London-based producers Andy Dean and Ben Wolfe, who contacted S-Curve Records founder and CEO, Steve Greenberg in December 2001 telling him "they had just heard the greatest singer they'd ever heard from their country". In early 2002, Greenberg flew Stone to New York for an audition, in which she sang to backing tracks of classic soul songs: Otis Redding's 1968 "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay", Gladys Knight & the Pips' 1973 "Midnight Train to Georgia", and Franklin's "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman"; Greenberg instantly signed her to his label.

After being signed by S-Curve Records, her US market album was released by S-Curve Records and on the international market her album was released by EMI Music. Stone flew to Miami and Philadelphia to start work on her debut album, The Soul Sessions, released on 16 September 2003. She collaborated with people with solid credentials in the Miami soul scene such as Betty Wright, Benny Latimore, Timmy Thomas and Little Beaver as well as contemporary acts Angie Stone and the Roots. The album, produced by Steve Greenberg, Mike Mangini and Betty Wright, consists of little-known soul tracks by Franklin, Laura Lee, Bettye Swann and others. Released in late 2003, it reached the top five on the UK Albums Chart as well as the top forty of the US Billboard 200 chart. The lead single, "Fell in Love with a Boy", a reworking of the White Stripes' 2001 "Fell in Love with a Girl", reached the top 20 of the UK Singles Chart, as did the second single, a cover version of Sugar Billy's 1974 song "Super Duper Love (Are You Diggin' on Me)". The album eventually went triple platinum by the British Phonographic Industry in mid-April 2005 and gold by the Recording Industry Association of America in late March 2004.

2004–2006: Mind Body & Soul and film debut

After achieving critical acclaim with The Soul Sessions, Stone worked on new material, and recorded her second album, Mind Body & Soul, which was released on 28 September 2004, produced by the same team as her first album. She called the album her real debut. It debuted at No. one in the UK, breaking the record for the youngest female ever to top the UK Albums Chart, and just missed the top ten of the US Billboard 200 after peaking at No. 11. The lead single, "You Had Me", became her biggest hit to date when it rose to No. 9 in the UK. Follow-up singles "Right to Be Wrong" and "Spoiled" both made the top 40, and "Don't Cha Wanna Ride", the top 20. "Spoiled" landed just outside the top 50 of US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, peaking at No. 54. In early September 2005, Mind, Body & Soul was certified triple platinum by the BPI and platinum by the RIAA.

In April 2004, Stone performed during the VH1's benefit concert Divas Live 2004 alongside Ashanti, Cyndi Lauper, Gladys Knight, Jessica Simpson and Patti LaBelle, in support of the Save the Music Foundation. Stone joined Band Aid 20 on 14 November 2004 in benefit of Sudan's troubled Darfur region. The group, which included Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin and U2 lead singer Bono, re-recorded the 1984 song "Do They Know It's Christmas?", written by Band Aid organisers Bob Geldof and Midge Ure. Stone, who was born two years after the release of the original single, was not initially aware of who Bob Geldof was, with media reporting that she repeatedly referred to him as Bob Gandalf. Despite some criticism, the single became the UK's biggest-selling single of 2004 as well as the 2004 Christmas number-one single.

At the 2005 BRIT Awards, Stone won for British Female Solo Artist and British Urban Act—entering the Guinness World Records as the youngest BRIT Award solo winner at age seventeen, and was nominated for British Breakthrough Act. She also received a nomination for Best UK Act of the Year at the 2005 MOBO Awards, as well as three nominations for the 2005 Grammy Awards—Best New Artist, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "You Had Me", and Best Pop Vocal Album for Mind Body & Soul, where she sang with rock performer Melissa Etheridge, in tribute to blues-rock singer Janis Joplin. Their performance of "Cry Baby/Piece of My Heart" was released as a single, and through the aid of strong digital download sales, became Stone's first single to enter the US Billboard Hot 100, when it debuted and peaked at No. 32 the week of 2 April 2005.