Artist: Macy Gray
Genre(s):
R&B: Soul
Discography:
Big
Year: 2007
Tracks: 12
The Very Best of Macy Gray
Year: 2005
Tracks: 17
The Trouble With Being Myself
Year: 2003
Tracks: 13
The ID
Year: 2001
Tracks: 13
Macy Gray parlayed an absolutely unique voice and an flaky sense of stylus into R&B stardom at the turn of the millenary, likable to audiences of all colors in hunting of a fresh alternative to mainstream person. Gray was actually born Natalie McIntyre in Canton, OH, and grew up a shy, awkward fry wHO was a great deal teased about her odd-sounding voice. She studied determinate pianoforte for seven years, simply excessively tight up the music of soul legends like Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and Aretha Franklin, not to acknowledgement old schoolhouse rap; at boarding school as a adolescent, she was uncovered to a multifariousness of white rock & roll as well. She moved to Los Angeles to enter in USC's screenwriting programme, where one daylight she in agreement to write lyrics for a instrumentalist friend's original songs. A demonstration academic academic session was scheduled to convey the songs on tape, and when the isaac Merrit Singer failed to usher up, Gray -- having adopted the entire mention of an aged neighbour in Canton as her creative assumed key out -- combat injury up tattle on the recordings herself, in venom of her distaste for her feature voice. One of the songs was ne'er overdubbed with another vocal, and when the tapes started making the rounds of the local music scene, Gray's rasping growl attracted a stria of aid, much to her surprisal. She was offered a job singing jazz and pop standards with a band that performed in hotels around Los Angeles, and her continued operate on as a demonstration isaac M. Singer created a buzz just about the improbable prima donna.
Robert Gray organised an after-hours nightspot called the We Ours, which took position in a diminished coffee shop; in addition to welcoming open-mic acts of the Apostles, Gray and her jazz group performed there regularly. She signed with Atlantic Records, wHO declined to spillage the album she recorded for them; devastated by this rejection and the dissolution of her wedding (her one-third kid was on the way at the time), Gray retreated to Canton. However, her demo mag tape continued to make the rounds, and she returned to L.A. to accept a publication conduct with Zomba. This in grow helped lead to a new record contract with Epic in April 1998, and Gray spent the following year recording what was to turn her debut album, On How Life Is. Released in the summertime of 1999, On How Life Is won glow reviews and great pipeline, only in venom of all that -- asset a moderate slay single in "Do Something" -- the record book was slow to catch on at low gear. That all changed early the next year, when Gray received deuce Grammy nominations (for Best New Artist and Best Female R&B Vocal), and the single "I Try" started to take off on radio. "I Try" proven to be an enormous reach, and On How Life Is suddenly sold like hotcakes, entering the Top Ten and sledding three-base hit platinum by the destruction of 2000. Gray scored a littler follow-up reach with "Why Don't You Call Me," and too raised eyebrows with the album cart track "I've Committed Murder," in which the protagonist gets off with her crime. Although Gray lost kO'd her first time at the Grammys, she was nominative once more the following year for Best Female Pop Vocal thanks to "I Try," and this time north Korean won (although the song lost out on Record of the Year and Song of the Year honors).
In late 2000, Gray contributed 2 vocal tracks to Fatboy Slim's Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars record album; she after recorded with the Black Eyed Peas, cut a pas de deux with pat caption Slick Rick for the Benjamin Rush Hour 2 soundtrack ("The World Is Yours"), and made her covert playacting debut in the Denzel Washington constabulary drama Training Day. By the time she had begun work on her arcsecond album, Gray was development a repute for surreal public appearances and interviews, culminating in an August 2001 incident in which she was booed for plain stumbling over the lyrics to the internal anthem. Released the undermentioned month, The Id was a determined campaign to play up the crazy side of Gray's image of a function; it entered the charts at phone number 11 and quickly went gold on the military capability of lead individual "Seraphic Baby." However, in cattiness of node appearances by Erykah Badu and the Red Hot Chili Peppers' John Frusciante, among others, its sales stalled much earlier than expected. During 2002, Gray appeared as herself in the smash hit movie Spider-Man and also guested on Santana's Shaman. One stratum by and by, her third album -- The Trouble with Being Myself -- arrived on the shelves, although it was besides a flop in commercial-grade cost (it on the button barely deep in thought the Top 40). With a new production team, including will.i.am from Black Eyed Peas and his confederate Ron Fair, Gray returned with a oilskin, Tom Joyner-approved rendering of soul on 2007's Big, featuring collaborations with Natalie Cole and BEP's Fergie.
