Macy Gray

Macy Gray Artistfacts

  • September 6, 1967
  • Her real name is Natalie McIntyre. Macy Gray was a friend of her father's who lived nearby. She liked the sound of it, so she used it as a stage name.
  • Her marriage to the mortgage broker Tracy Hinds ended in 1998, the same year she signed a record deal and started working on her first album. She had three children with Hinds: daughters Aanisah and Tahmel (both born in 1995), and son Cassius (born in 1997). Much of her first album deals with her relationship with Hinds.
  • Macy studied screenwriting at the University of Southern California. One of her student scripts was about a girl who falls in love with her father.
  • She struggled for years before becoming a successful solo artist. In the mid-'90s, she got a deal with Atlantic Records as lead singer for a rock band; they recorded an album, but it was never released. After starting her family and taking a job as a secretary, she got a second chance when a music publisher heard some of her old demo records and helped get her a deal with Epic Records. She was 32 when her debut album, On How Life Is, was released.
  • In America, she is almost exclusively known for her hit "I Try," but in Europe her broader discography has more appeal. Her second album, The Id, went to #1 in the UK.
  • She grew up in Canton, Ohio, home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
  • They didn't know each other, but Marilyn Manson (known then as Brian Warner) grew up in her neighborhood.
  • At her commercial peak, she toured with a troupe of 15, complete with five backup singers and a horn section.
  • Her sound isn't easy to define - her early press materials billed her as a cross between Billie Holiday and Janis Joplin.
  • Her stage moves were always a bit awkward, but this didn't stop her from appearing on Dancing with the Stars in 2009. She was eliminated in the second round.
  • Like a canary to a cat, she avoids metaphor and symbolism in her songwriting, preferring to "just say it."
  • For a few months in 2001, the Philadelphia Weekly published a "Macy Gray Quote Of The Week." Here's an example:

    "I have a bronze statue of myself, naked. I have these really big curls and water comes out of every curl. It's hot."

Comments: 2

  • Thorsten from Heidelberg, GermanyShe was hired as a studio singer backing serveral pop stars before she herself brougth forht a big hit.
    Besides, she appears as herself performing a live concert in the movie Spiderman.
    And she contributed her hit single I try to the romantic movie with jennifer aniston Picture Perfect.
  • Nicholas Thompson from Landover, MdShe sounds like Tina Turner swallowing razors and some whiskey, also she sounds like she's high on crack
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