Joss Stone is the stage name of Jocelyn Eve Stoker. She was born on April 11, 1987 in Dover, Kent, and spent her teenage years in Ashill, a small village in Devon. She is the third of four children born to Richard and Wendy Stoker. In 2001, at the age of fourteen, Stone auditioned for the BBC Television talent show Star for a Night in London singing Franklin’s 1968 Goffin-King hit "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" and Whitney Houston’s 1998 "It’s Not Right but It’s Okay". After passing her audition, she sang Donna Summer’s 1979 "On the Radio" for the broadcast, and eventually won the contest. Her debut album, The Soul Sessions was released on November 24, 2003. As the highest debut of the week, The Soul Sessions entered the UK Albums Chart at number forty-seven the week of January 17, 2004, and reached its peak position of number four three weeks later. It spent twelve non-consecutive weeks in the top ten and seventy weeks altogether in the top seventy-five, including three re-entries in 2005. In 2004, Joss Stone released her second studio album, Mind, Body & Soul. In 2007, she released her third studio album Introducing Joss Stone. While not as commercially successful as Stone’s previous albums in her native UK, Introducing Joss Stone debuted at number two on the U.S. Billboard 200 selling 118,000 units in its opening week.
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