‘Making a noise’

Joss Stone breezes into a Los Angeles rehearsal studio and folds her 5-foot-9-and-still-growing teenage frame onto a sofa. As is her penchant onstage, the lanky, blond British singer kicks off her shoes.

That’s perhaps an indication of her comfort level, despite a slight case of nerves about an upcoming House of Blues showcase in West Hollywood where she would perform material from her new album, “Mind, Body & Soul.”

She hasn’t ruled out the prospect that she might bomb. “We’ll just have to see,” she suggests with a laugh.

For one who’s just 17, Stone exudes a refreshing wariness toward fame, even though she easily might get caught up in it given the celebrity admirers she’s won — including Elton John, Lenny Kravitz, Tom Cruise and Mick Jagger.

They’re among the fans who latched on to Stone through her 2003 debut recording, “The Soul Sessions.” That 10-song collection, mostly little-known R&B nuggets from the ‘60s and ‘70s, introduced a voice and style that made many listeners think she was a veteran soul singer from the American South rather than a gangly white teen from rural Devon, England.

It has sold more than 600,000 copies in the United States alone, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and remains on Billboard’s Top 200 Albums chart more than a year later.

That wasn’t what Stone expected or even wanted out of the project, which she envisioned essentially as a calling card for “Mind, Body & Soul” — the work she likes to call “my real debut.”

“It’s nice (‘The Soul Sessions’) was selling, but in a way I felt like, ‘Please stop,’ ” she says. “It’s good, really, but it makes it harder for this one because people are going to be looking at it really hard.”

For Stone, there’s more of herself in — and on the line with — “Mind, Body & Soul.” Instead of old R&B songs done the traditional way, the album consists of 14 songs, 11 of them co-written by Stone, melding classic soul elements with hip-hop beats and other contemporary pop and R&B textures.

That gives the new album a stronger sense of personality than came through on “The Soul Sessions,” and Stone’s voice sounds richer and more confident. The opening track, “Right to Be Wrong,” lays out an assured young woman’s declaration of her prerogative to make — and live with — her own choices.

Her new single, “You Had Me,” a sassy kiss-off from a girl who’s been jilted by her boyfriend, rides on an insistent groove that has a shot at snagging some of Beyonce’s fans.

Where Stone dramatically parts ways from most of her contemporaries is in the absence of the extreme vocal ornamentation that has come to define the Mariah Careys and Christina Aguileras of the pop world.

“Just sing the song and tell the story,” she says. “Otherwise, people won’t be listening to the story, they’ll just be listening to all these (vocal) tricks.

“I don’t want to showcase my voice — I want people to listen to my music as a whole (and) to be happy and smile when they listen to it and feel some kind of emotion. They can’t do that with somebody doing all these crazy acrobatics all over it.”

Stone found her way into the music world on a lark, after entering and winning a BBC-TV talent contest when she was 14. She quickly landed a recording contract after a tape on which she sang Franklin’s hit “A Natural Woman (You Make Me Feel Like)” and Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay” made its way into the hands of S-Curve Records President Steve Greenberg.

Greenberg conceived “The Soul Sessions” and co-produced it and her new album with Mike Mangini and R&B singer Betty Wright (“Clean Up Woman”), who continues to work closely with the young singer.

Stone has been described in the media as “excruciatingly shy,” yet with only a little more than a year in the pop spotlight she projects a well-grounded confidence. That has helped her weather criticism from those who suggest that the attention she’s received stems from the novelty of a white teenager from the United Kingdom singing old-school R&B.

“All I’m doing is making a noise,” she says. “I’m not saving anybody’s life. It’s not that amazing. I’m just making a noise and trying to make people smile.”