Macy Gray was born at the home of Professional Football Hall of Fame, Canton Ohio to Laura McIntyre and Otis Jones. Her mother remarried Richard McIntyre who adopted Macy. She was considered ‘tardy’ being fired from her first job at the ‘Hall of Fame’ for laziness. She was also expelled from the Western Reserve Academy in Hudson and after this she decided she wanted to enter into a music career.
Gray is known for not liking her unique, gravely and soulful voice and she thought her break in the industry would come by her songwriting ability. While attending the University of Southern California she agreed to do some songwriting for a friend, but at the demo session for the songs the girl booked in to sing them never showed up. Gray was left to record the songs herself. While working as a cashier in Beverly Hills she met producer Joe Solo and they collaborated on a vast collection of songs and recorded them at Joe’s Studio.
Despite Macy’s dislike of her own voice others found it distinctive and her demo created a lot of attention around the local jazz scene. She started doing gigs at jazz cafes across L.A. She signed a deal with Atlantic records and gave them her demo tape, unfortunately for them they were not satisfied with it and Gray went back to Canton to face a marriage break-up and give birth to her 3rd child. However the demo tape was still being floated around various studios and she received her break signing a record deal with Epic Records, she was simultaneously singing on The Black Eyed Pea’s album “Love Won’t Wait.
Gray worked hard on her debut album “On How Life Is” and success came with it’s release in 1999 with the album becoming triple platinum in the U.S, quadruple platinum in the U.K, and triple platinum in Canada.
She won a Grammy in 2001 for “Best Female Pop Vocal Performance” for “I Try” going on to work with Slick Rick, Fatboy Slim, Outkast and the Black Eyed Peas. Macy also tried her hand at acting with Denzel Washington in Training Day. She is an example to others that you should have confidence in your own ability and persistence. Nowadays to many artists expect things to happen overnight when you really got to try till you crumble to make it in the big, bad world of music.
