Its 13 years since singer/songwriter Joss Stone broke into the charts with her album debut The Soul Sessions. Still very much at the top of her game, Miss Stone, barefoot and in a beautiful green dress stepped on to the St David’s Hall stage on Sunday evening and immediately had the Cardiff audience in the palm of her hands.
“We’re feeling very lucky tonight as we have some people behind us making some wonderful noises,” she said as she gestured to the 14-strong orchestra and two backing vocalists before launching into Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s Walk on By.
The 90 minutes that followed were endearing as they were electrifying. Citing she was feeling nervous that members of her family in the audience the singer/songwriter quickly reined in any apprehensions to deliver a combination of soul classics and her own hits.
Heartfelt renditions of Carole King’s Natural Woman and James Brown’s This is a Man’s World were combined with glimpses of Miss Stone’s own song writing honesty via her own compositions “It’s a song I wrote when I was in a bad mood,” she said of This Ain’t Love, “Don’t judge me, he deserved it!”
Miss Stone’s endearing personality shone through, proceeding to pronounce a selection of Welsh phrases which caused some lively interaction with Welsh speakers in the audience. The Welsh translation of I Love You “Rwy’n dy garu di “was eventually passed to Miss Stone on a card before she incorporated the words beautifully into the opening of her rendition of Gladys Knight’s Midnight Train to Georgia.
Further highlights included a rousing rendition of Super Duper Love and her closing song, Right To Be Wrong of which the final lyric instructed the audience to “Stay with me through the Madness, Sadness and Joy… musically!” After such a platinum performance, it was clear by the appreciative response Joss Stone’s audience undoubtedly would!