Joss Stone performs barefoot in the recent Java Jazz festival in Jakarta. (JP/P.J.Leo)

After a decade of traveling the world and being far from home for the sake of her music, English soul prodigy Joss Stone has decided to slow things down.

“I do less now. I still do a lot of work but nothing compared to the amount I did at the beginning of my career,” the long-haired blonde told The Jakarta Post when she was in town to perform at the Java Jazz Festival.

Stone rose to fame in 2003, when she was only 15, with her multi-platinum debut album, The Soul Sessions.

She immediately grabbed music enthusiasts’ attention with her cover versions of tracks made famous by Aretha Franklin, Laura Lee and Bettye Swann.

Talking about her early years in music, Stone described them as hard work with seemingly no end.

“I slogged on for the first two or three years. It was on and on. I was working a lot more when I was 15,” she said, recalling her efforts during her early years in music.

The singer, who resides in Devon, Britain, said that she no longer wanted to work at a similar pace. “That to me is not a healthy thing to do,” she says.

Stone has deliberately chosen to slow down, a peculiar career choice considering her age.

“I have made the choice to make music, sing songs to the world and still have a nice life. I enjoy it more now,” she said.

The singer lives in the house where she grew up, with the company of a Teacup Poodle, a Rottweiler, a Caucasian Ovcharka and a Collie-German Shepherd mix.

She bought the home from her parents along with an adjoining plot of land.

The house also remains home to her younger brother Harry, and her mother lives just down the road.

Stone said she did not regret her career path, which stole time from her teenage years.

“I wouldn’t have done anything differently. I think I learned a lot because of amazing things that happened and bad things that happened.

“If I had not had the bad ones, I wouldn’t have appreciated the good ones. I need to experience,” she said.

Stone’s obsession for soul music began early and, as a teen, she loved singing along to Aretha Franklin’s Greatest Hits, an album she had asked for one Christmas.

Her second album, Mind Body & Soul in 2004, rode the wave of success of The Soul Sessions’ commercial momentum and earned Stone three Grammy nominations, including one for Best New Artist. The single “You Had Me” earned her two Brit Awards in the same year.

On her third album, Introducing Joss Stone in 2007, she showcased her songwriting abilities. The album entered the US charts at No. 2, marking the highest debut ever for a female British solo artist on the Billboard charts.

In 2009, she released Color Me Free and two years later, LP1 – a debut album on her label Stone’d Records – while she was also involved in a collaboration project for “Superheavy” with Mick Jagger, Dave Stewart, Damien Marley and AR Rahman.

During her career, she has shared stages with James Brown, Gladys Knight, Solomon Burke, Blondie, Smokey Robinson and Melissa Etheridge among many others, and has contributed to albums by Jeff Beck and Ringo Starr.

She said that one of her greatest experiences was watching a live performance by Gladys Knight, the Empress of Soul.

“I saw her doing something really small, but what she did was so graceful and so controlled. The next day I was a completely different performer, her show completely changed my life when it came to performing,” Stone said.

While Stone’s signature stage performance is to be barefooted, the singer said she had nothing against shoes.

“It’s not that I like or dislike them, I just can’t be bothered to wear them,” she said.

“Do you understand that when a woman travels with a pair of shoes for every outfit, she can end up bringing a whole other suitcase?”

Singing barefoot for her was also a matter of being comfortable and being safe. “I like looking at beautiful shoes, but they’re dangerous; you can fall over on stage.”

“Luckily, what I do and the reason why people like what I do have nothing to do with what I am wearing. Thank God,” she said looking up to the heavens.

After years of working in the music industry, Stone believes she has become a better singer.

“I think that comes with age. My voice is stronger and it’s easier for me to be confident in my music, to be confident about a melody or lyric, or in production.”

Although she seems to have done it all, Stone said she had more wishes in music.

“I want to learn to sing in a different way, in a different genre because that would really stretch my voice,” she said.

She also said she would like to play more controlled, straight music. “What I currently do is more like improvisation. We basically make stuff up, we just kind of jam.”

However, true to her live and let live attitude, Stone said she did not know when she would actually start pursuing her wish.

“Might happen tomorrow; might never happen. I don’t like to force myself too much, I just do whatever. Let it come naturally

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