Elly Roberts reviews
Joss Stone:
Mind Body & Soul
Distributed by
EMI (Relentless Records)
- Year: 2004
- Rating: 7/10
- Cat. No: 86620323
Track listing:
1. Right To Be Wrong
2. Jet Lag
3. You Had Me
4. Spoiled
5. Don’t You Wanna Ride
6. Less Is More
7. Security
8. Young At Heart
9. Snakes And Ladders
10. Understand
11. Don’t Know How
12. Torn And Tattered
13. Killing Me
14. Sleep Like A Child
With new single, You Had Me, released mid-September, making No.9 in the charts, and now this album, Mind Body Soul, Joss Stone is set to continue last year’s success.
The Devon babe’s second
effort continues with the same overall sound and feel. This time around
there’s no covers – it’s all originals. A tribute to the soul legends that
have influenced her over the years – in effect it’s a young voice doing old
soul, and it works. Her parents’ music collection included The Beatles,
Devo, Anita Baker and Tracey Chapman, however only the last two make any
inroads into her current repertoire.
She belts out songs like a Motown
goddess as found on track 7 – the gospel tour de force of Security. For one
so young – 18 years of age, she’s proved that she can mix it with the best.
The first two tracks are mellow ; Right To Be Wrong and Jet Lag warming up
the sassy and raw larynx. Then on track 3, the single, she really lets rip,
to an extent we never heard on last year’s multi – platinum Soul Sessions.
It’s sophisticated funk and could make the dance floor yet. It’s something
that could dislodge diva Beyonce from the diva pedestal.
Her image is not at the forefront of her ‘packaging ‘, and I hope to stays
that way. Visually, she she’s got the ‘mature diva ‘look, which sets her
apart from the ‘slut – groupie ‘image her contemporaries have adopted. Music
should speak for itself without the sickening hype. This does exactly that.
Production is sublime, under the close mentoring of 70’s soul songstress
Betty Wright who had considerable input the first time.
At times you detect
a more contemporary R’n’B tangent (Young At Heart, Snakes and Ladders),
which is sure to broaden her fanbase, and certainly targeted at the US
market. Comparisons have been drawn with Dusty Springfield and Aretha
Franklin, and rightly so. However, there’ll have to be far more commercial
singles to get her that truly global recognition.
Reggae ditty – Less Is More and Don’t You Wanna Ride (best of the lot, which should have been the
single) are the closest we get it. Best songs of the 14 on offer – Don’t
Know How, Young At Heart, Security, Less Is More and Don’t You Wanna Ride.
Two years ago, Joscelyn Eve Stoker’s secret wish was to be 18. Now she is
and she’s doing rather well thank you.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
Review & concert pics copyright © Elly Roberts, 2004-2010.