Two former managers of Joss Stone have spoken to the press about their relationships with the R&B singer.

 

The Devon singer was recently quoted as saying she has had four managers in the last five years and sacked each and every one! "I hated them all," she is reported to have said.

 

Well it seems like some of her former career-guiders have similar feelings.

 

"She's making a lot of wrong decisions at the moment," Ron Stone (no relation) told The Mail On Sunday. "If she's not careful, she could derail her career. Joss wants to manage herself but you have to consider her lack of understanding of the challenges in front of her. There's no way she can make the sophisticated choices demanded because her life experience is so very limited.

 

"She's a lovely girl, as sweet as can be, attractive and enormously talented, but when it comes to her career she's convinced she's right and everyone else over 30 is wrong."

 

Alex Cole, who managed Joss's screen career from 2006 to earlier this year, agrees with Ron Stone.

 

"She's tough and she's not easy to manage. She's young, a free spirit, who thinks that she can conquer the world on her own. She thinks she doesn't need anyone telling her what to do or how to do it.

 

"When anyone tells her she can't do something creatively – perhaps she shouldn't sing a certain song or take a particular movie role because they won't find an audience – she says she wants to be true to herself and sees her advisers as selling out."

 

Indeed, Stone recently said that her heart hadn't been in her first or second albums, and that her latest record was much more representative of who she is as a person and a performer. She also admitted to firing the team who were responsible for the early part of her career, feeling they had strangled her creativity and mis-advised her.

 

However, Ron Stone thinks her decision to guide her own career is a huge error in judgment. 'Managing herself is a big mistake. She knows what she wants, but she won't know how to get it. And when she enters negotiations with record companies and music publishers, they will have negotiated hundreds of contracts previously and she'll be going in with only what she knows. It could be a recipe for disaster."

 

'On her last concert tour, she played Los Angeles twice in a few months. The second time more than 1,000 seats were empty. That was a serious mistake because you always want your audience and promoters wanting more, scrambling to buy tickets when you next come to town.

 

'She released her last album too soon because the record company wanted its revenue added to that quarter's earnings. But what's good for the record company isn't always good for Joss – she would have benefited by spending a few more months making a better album.'

 

"She runs the risk of destroying her own career, and that would be a tragic waste of a great talent.'

 

Over to you Jossers...

I kind of agree. I think she does need someone that can tell her how she can get what she wants in her career. She should find some kind of manager. She's too young and doesnt have enough experience.