Joss Stone is her own boss

Joss Stone is laughing at the question.

"He's asking me if I think I could be Adele," she tells her friends, sitting in the restaurant of a Manhattan hotel.

"What kind of question is that?" she jokes. "No!"

Well, there are similarities -- Stone, 24, and Adele, 23, are both independent-minded British female singer-songwriters steeped in a love of R&B and blues, with big voices and equally big personalities. But Stone -- who says she's thrilled to have started her own record label, Stone'd Records, to release her new album "LP1" -- says she isn't interested in comparing her career to anyone else's, not even the reigning queen of the pop charts on both sides of the Atlantic this year.

"I love Adele," Stone says. "I think she's absolutely awesome and has done a bloody brilliant job. But I don't like to think of things like that. I look at it like: 'Brilliant! I hope that's another person I get to sing with one day.' I really want to sing with her."

Stone says her admiration of Adele also extends beyond music. "One, she's English, so she's also flying the flag," she says. "Two, she's extremely, extremely classy. . . . She's not like some drunken crazy person. And three, she's young. She awesome. She deserves all the success she's gotten and more. But you can't live your life thinking, 'I want her success.' "

"I'm good with mine," Stone adds.

And why wouldn't she be?

A star at 14

Stone has been on a roll since she won the British talent show "Star for a Night" at the age of 14. She's had Grammy nominations, including one for best new artist, two Top 10 albums and a string of hit singles, not to mention all the legends she's gotten the chance to work with, from James Brown to Ringo Starr.

After "LP1," she can add Dave Stewart to that list. "It was a wicked experience," Stone says, laughing. "He's almost as mad as I am -- maybe a bit more, he's been around longer. We have such a short attention span that we'd write a song, or begin to, and half an hour later, we'd be like, 'Yeah, OK, that's done. Moving on.' It's much more fun and exciting than mulling over it for bloody days. We mixed very well that way."

The results range from the stripped-back acoustic prettiness of "Newborn" to the full-on British blues treatment in "Don't Start Lying to Me Now," complete with honky-tonk piano and fiery vocals. Stone says she likes the range and hopes fans will come along for the whole ride.

"I like to dream that people will press play at the beginning and not skip, that they'll listen to the whole piece that I've made," she says. "I'm not really the kind of artist who worries about a single. I concentrate on what the whole album sounds like."

With Mick and the boys

Stone's collaboration with Stewart for "LP1" led to her joining his new supergroup SuperHeavy, where her bandmates include Mick Jagger, A.R. Rahman and Damian Marley. The band's album, which Stone calls "weirdly wonderful," is set for release in September.

"When Dave called me and asked me to be part of it, I didn't believe him," she says, laughing. "It was like he was calling me to go down to the pub."

Stone says she was happy to just be part of a band for a change and amazed to be part of the process. "It'll definitely go in the book about my life that I'll never write," she says.

SuperHeavy is only part of her immediate future that she's considering, though. (And, no, she's not worried about a recent reported plot where two men were allegedly planning to rob and possibly murder her in her home in Devon, England. "False alarm," she says of the alleged plan foiled by her neighbors. "I'm still here. It's all good. Everything's fine. I'm still breathing in and out.")

Now that "LP1" is done, Stone is already thinking about recording its follow-up -- possibly a bluegrass album, though she admits, "that's just what I was thinking of today, so that could change" -- and releasing it late this year around the holidays. Such is the beauty of running your own record company.

"It's so lovely to make music in a lovely environment with lovely people, where I don't have to ask somebody's permission," she says. "I'm ready to make another [album]. That's what I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to be bloody singing. I'm not a model. I'm not a politician. I'm not supposed to talk for a living. I'm a singer and that's what I'm going to do."

Stone's soul body of work

BY GLENN GAMBOA, glenn.gamboa@newsday.com

Joss Stone's break from the major-label system for the new "LP1" has been a long time coming, especially as she started to face diminishing returns for her work. Here's a look at her catalog:

THE SOUL SESSIONS (2003)

LABEL S-Curve

PEAK No. 39

SINGLE "Super Duper Love (Are You Diggin' on Me?)"

THE STORY After winning the British talent show "Star for a Night" at 14, Stone impressed S-Curve CEO Steve Greenberg with her soulful vocals. He signed her and assembled some R&B classics (as well as The White Stripes' "Fell in Love With a Girl") for her to let loose on.

MIND, BODY & SOUL (2004)

LABEL EMI

PEAK No. 11

SINGLES "Spoiled," "Right to Be Wrong"

THE STORY Stone writes her own music this time out, still with an eye to R&B's past, and becomes the youngest female artist to ever land a No. 1 album in her native England.

INTRODUCING JOSS STONE (2007)

LABEL EMI

PEAK No. 2

SINGLES "Bruised but Not Broken," "Tell Me 'Bout It"

THE STORY Emboldened by her success, Stone tries to expand her style, working with producer Raphael Saadiq and exploring a more neosoul vibe.

COLOUR ME FREE! (2009)

LABEL EMI

PEAK No. 10

SINGLE "Free Me"

THE STORY After Stone tried and failed to get out of her record deal, she released the not-so-subtle "Colour Me Free!" and the single "Free Me." The album also finds her stretching with the help of high-powered guests -- including Nas on "Governmentalist" and Jeff Beck and Sheila E. on "Parallel Lines."