Changing Her Tune

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It has been a long three years in the freewheeling life of Joss Stone since the 20-year-old first sang on "VH1 Divas" in Las Vegas.

But that’s still one show she won’t forget.

"That was the day that I changed how I performed. I remember after seeing Gladys Knight, everything changed," says the soul belter who plays the outdoor Mandalay Bay Beach stage on Saturday.

"My mom noticed it: ‘What happened to you?’ I just looked at (the Las Vegas-based Knight) and I saw something in that woman that was so angellike and just amazing. Like she knew what she was doing. She was very confident.

"I realized that day, even if I don’t feel confident I have to just make it look like I am," Stone says, capping the statement with one of the laughs that frequently punctuate the rapid-fire, whiskey-barrel rasp of her speaking voice.

To others watching the "Divas" in April 2004, Stone didn’t make a bad impression herself. The teen already seemed impressively in control of pipes that sounded like the ancient gods of Memphis soul had been channeled into a barefoot British girl in a hippie skirt, one who had only turned 17 the week before.

Clearly, she was gifted with a voice beyond her years. But Stone says she didn’t really feel in full control of her powers until she had nearly finished recording her second album, "Mind, Body & Soul" that same year.

"I feel like it’s easier now and I feel like I should be doing it," she says. "Whereas before, it was like, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this. Maybe this is the wrong place for me to be.’ Because I didn’t know what I was doing. I was very scared.

"I’ve been very scared for many years of my life," she adds. "Now it’s just every now and again, like when I do the really big (shows)," such as an upcoming Carnegie Hall tribute to Elton John on Oct. 10.

Her current album is titled "Introducing Joss Stone" even though it’s her third. She had a strong hand in writing the songs produced by Raphael Saadiq more as modern pop, dialing down the retro throwback sound of her first two albums.

"It’s really strange to be, I guess, making somebody else’s vision come true," she says of her early work. "And it’s like, ‘OK, that was great, but now let me do mine.’

"And I really loved this one, but this is the album that’s pissing everybody off," she says of the disc that debuted in Billboard’s No. 2 spot last spring, but has since cooled on the charts.

The new sound came with a visual makeover, complete with cover art featuring Stone in ’60s-mod body paint and magenta hair. "Any type of change," Stone figures, "will make the vast amount of people very, very nervous."

But change will be constant with the singer who says she "get(s) bored very quick."

"I don’t want to die saying I was just a singer. I want to do many different things. Obviously that’s why I got into writing. I want to expand. I want to become a person that can feel like she can do it all. I don’t want to be stuck, ever. Even if it’s stuck in something amazing, and this is amazing."

Stone made her acting debut as a witch in the movie fantasy "Eragon," and now reads through script submissions looking for something that excites her. "I would like to be an actress, I would like to be a midwife, I’d love to go back to school and learn something," she says, adding the laugh again, "because I really didn’t at the time."

Dyslexia, combined with the early launch of her music career, made a washout of her school days. Reading is still a challenge, but less so when something is "inspiring me creatively."

Stone isn’t a high-value tabloid target in the United States. But in England, the Daily Mail called her a "virtually friendless" and "desperately lonely girl."

"They’re so mean to me!" Stone says, not sounding upset. She figures "they are mad at me because I’m not there." Brits seem to believe the singer defected to Los Angeles. But the truth, she says, is that she has no address at all. The closest one is her mother’s, but "I haven’t really lived anywhere for four years now."

The nomadic life is "a little lonely," she admits, "but it’s OK because you get to meet lots of different people and do different things." Things will change quickly the day she tires of it, she adds, because "music is a beautiful thing and it should stay beautiful. If I start to hate it one day because of my life, I’m going to be really upset."

For now, "I’m just going to go with the flow and see how my life takes me and try to be happy while I’m doing it," she says.

"I’m not settling down having kids or anything, so it doesn’t matter. The only loyalty I have right now is my music. That’s my life. That’s my boyfriend, that’s my kids. That’s everything."