Introducing Joss Stone CD

Personnel: Joss Stone (vocals); Common, Lauryn Hill (vocals); Raphael Saadiq (guitar, piano, keyboards, background vocals); Chalmers "Spanky" Alford (guitar); Louis Colin (harp); Robert Ozuna (sitar, drums, percussion, turntables); Barry Finclair, Cameron Patrick, Kathleen Robertson, Richard Adkins, Lori Miller, Pamela Gates, Alexander Vselensky, Stanley Hunte, Sandra Billingslea, Gayle Dixon, Sanford Allen, Robert Chausow, Cenovia Cummins, Yvette Devereaux, Lesa Terry, Susan Chatman, Belinda Whitney, Mark Cargill, Charlie Bisharat (violin); Robin Ross, Jorge Moraga, Patrick Morgan, Christopher Jenkins, Richard Brice, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson (viola); Eileen Folson, Erik Friedlander, Ronald Lipscomb, Miguel Martinez, Frederick Zlotkin, Peggy Baldwin (cello); Kenneth Whalum (tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, horns); Anthony Coleman & Selfhaters (trumpet, horns); Jawara Adams (trumpet); James Zellar (trombone, horns); Lionel Holoman (horns, Fender Rhodes piano, organ, Wurlitzer organ, keyboards); Salvator Cracciolo, Jeffrey Clayton, Ron Brown , Matthew Frank , James Ford , Duane Benjamin, Steve Baxter (horns); Khari Parker (drums, percussion); Charlie Happiness (claves); Neil Symonette (percussion); Joi Gilliam, Keisha Jackson, Priscilla Jones Campbell, Jerimiah "Jermaine" Paul (background vocals).
Additional personnel: Common, Lauryn Hill.
Audio Mixers: Glenn Standridge; Chuck Brungardt.
Recording information: Blakeslee Recording co., North Hollywood, CA; Clinton Recording, New York, NY; Compass Point Studios, Nassau, Bahamas; Electric Lady Studios; Sonikwire Studios, Irvine, CA; The Plant Studios, Sausalito, CA.
Author: Joss Stone.
Photographers: Brian Bowen-Smith; Bob Scott .
Unknown Contributor Role: Jonathan Cohen "Meres".
British soul-pop singer Joss Stone was originally marketed as the teenage second coming of 1970s soul stars like Betty Everett and Ann Peebles. After two albums in that style (one consisting entirely of obscure soul covers) and a U.S. marketing push including several commercials for the Gap, Stone withdrew for a couple of years. INTRODUCING JOSS STONE, from the title onward, is an attempt to completely reinvent Stone's public persona, from a retro-soul blonde to a hip, happening redhead with her finger directly on the pulse of 2007 chart pop.
INTRODUCING JOSS STONE is produced by a bevy of contemporary hitmakers, though primarily Raphael Saadiq, and features cameo appearances by everyone from Lauryn Hill to ex-soccer star Vinnie Jones. But in the center of the drum loops, string sections, and slick electronics stands Stone's commanding voice. Opening track "Girl They Won't Believe It" sets the scene for the album as a whole, with Stone delivering a defiant vocal pitched midway between the appealing brattiness of Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse's full-throated R&B roar. No longer a retro favorite for the old-school R&B crowd, Joss Stone presents herself as a neo-soul diva for her times.
Typically, artists dispense with introductions after their debut -- after all, that is an album designed to introduce them to the world -- but neo-soul singer Joss Stone defiantly titled her third album Introducing Joss Stone, thereby dismissing her first two relatively acclaimed albums with one smooth stroke. She now claims that those records were made under record-label pressure -- neatly contradicting the party line that her debut, The Soul Sessions, turned into a retro-soul project after Joss implored her label to ditch the Christina Aguilera-styled urban-pop she was pursuing -- but now as a young adult of 19, she's free to pursue her muse in her own fashion. All this is back-story to Introducing, but Stone makes her modern metamorphosis plain on the album's very first track, where football-star-turned-Hollywood-muscle Vinnie Jones talks about change ("I see change, I embody change, all we do is change, yeah, I know change, we're born to change" and so on and so forth), setting the stage for somRolling Stone (p.80) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "Stone employs her remarkable instrument with focus and nuance on INTRODUCING, and the result is an album full of solid pop-wise R&B."
Q (p.108) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "'Tell Me 'Bout It' is as soulful as Betty Wright....'Tell Me What We're Gonna Do Now' is an unalloyed joy..."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.112) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[The album] contains her best songs and most relaxed, assured performances..."