Livia
09-06-2007, 01:06 PM
http://www.hour.ca/music/music.aspx?iIDArticle=12918
Laying it bare
Bugs Burnett
Gray: All up in her Humps
Macy Gray on album promotion and a few other naked truths
Who can forget Macy Gray at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards wearing a dress - now hanging in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum - that bore the message, "My new album drops Sept. 18."
Or how about Macy disrobing - wearing nothing but a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes - on stage in London to raise money for the Elton John AIDS Foundation back in July 2004.
So it should come as no surprise that last month Gray launched her new clothing line, the Natalie Hinds Collection by Macy Gray (Natalie is her birth name and Hinds the family name of her ex-husband and father of her three children).
And the Natalie Hinds Collection has its, uh, "Humps" line coming out soon.
"It's for bigger-size curvy girls," Gray rasps.
And, yes, her speaking voice sounds exactly like her singing voice.
And that voice, when Gray burst on the scene with her 1999 smash debut album On How Life Is, anchored by her Grammy-winning classic song I Try, is what earned her comparisons to Billie Holiday and Janis Joplin.
But it's truer to say Gray has more in common with Sly Stone or George Clinton. She is quirky, unpredictable, and if she was a man - say Sly or George - she'd get away with a whole lot more.
"I've never really had a tough time being a woman with feminist ideas in rock'n'roll," says Gray. "I've never taken any of the insults personally - they're out there, but I never absorb it or focus on it. Women's expectations in music are also different than men's. Robert Plant can wear jeans and a long
rock'n'roll shirt but women like Beyoncé have to wear a short skirt. It's a matter of showing skin."
Her Elton John AIDS Foundation stunt notwithstanding, Gray isn't the type to expose skin just to sell records. In fact, she'd rather wear a billboard - like the infamous dress she wore at the MTV Video Music Awards.
Gray took her fashion cues from Diana Ross ("My icon is Diana Ross in Mahogany") as well as Stevie Nicks, whose own fashion sense rarely made concessions to the male-dominated music business and, like Gray, is an extension of her persona.
Gray loves Nicks, who asked Macy to duet on her song Bombay Sapphire.
"I'm such a huge fan of hers. We went out for dinner - me, Stevie and Chris Isaak at Le Dome," Gray says of the L.A. restaurant that still represents Hollywood power and glamour more than any other Tinseltown eatery. "It was strange. We talked about all the things we'd like to do with our money and I mentioned I'd like to open a bowling alley [chain] and Stevie suggested putting celebrity faces on the bowling pins."
This is the kind of stuff Macy Gray does, between DJing, acting in films like Idlewild and launching fashion lines called Humps.
But this is also the stuff that keeps Gray busy when she's not selling records, and none of her later albums have come close to the success of her debut. It's a sore point for Gray, who quips, "I've been working," when I apparently have the gall to say, "It's nice to have you back. But you never went away, did you?"
But it's true: Her albums The Id and The Trouble With Being Myself sold a fraction of the millions that On How Life Is sold.
Gray says her old label, Epic Records, never properly promoted her. "You never know what can happen - corporations are very political. The hierarchy changes and everybody has their favourites."
Even her dress at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards didn't help much.
So Gray signed with Geffen Records for her recently released new studio album, her fourth, the very polished Big, co-executive produced by Black Eyed Pea will.i.am and featuring a wailing Natalie Cole on the rollercoaster duet Finally Made Me Happy, a song about how grateful Macy is that her man walked out the door. "Natalie came in the studio and knocked it out!"
But Gray's signature song will always be I Try.
When it lost both Song and Record of the Year at the 2000 Grammys to U2's Beautiful Day, Bono told the audience from the Grammy stage, "Macy should have won."
And what does Macy think?
"Mm-hmm. I agree."
Macy Gray
Osheaga, Parc Jean-Drapeau, Sept. 9
Laying it bare
Bugs Burnett
Gray: All up in her Humps
Macy Gray on album promotion and a few other naked truths
Who can forget Macy Gray at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards wearing a dress - now hanging in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum - that bore the message, "My new album drops Sept. 18."
Or how about Macy disrobing - wearing nothing but a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes - on stage in London to raise money for the Elton John AIDS Foundation back in July 2004.
So it should come as no surprise that last month Gray launched her new clothing line, the Natalie Hinds Collection by Macy Gray (Natalie is her birth name and Hinds the family name of her ex-husband and father of her three children).
And the Natalie Hinds Collection has its, uh, "Humps" line coming out soon.
"It's for bigger-size curvy girls," Gray rasps.
And, yes, her speaking voice sounds exactly like her singing voice.
And that voice, when Gray burst on the scene with her 1999 smash debut album On How Life Is, anchored by her Grammy-winning classic song I Try, is what earned her comparisons to Billie Holiday and Janis Joplin.
But it's truer to say Gray has more in common with Sly Stone or George Clinton. She is quirky, unpredictable, and if she was a man - say Sly or George - she'd get away with a whole lot more.
"I've never really had a tough time being a woman with feminist ideas in rock'n'roll," says Gray. "I've never taken any of the insults personally - they're out there, but I never absorb it or focus on it. Women's expectations in music are also different than men's. Robert Plant can wear jeans and a long
rock'n'roll shirt but women like Beyoncé have to wear a short skirt. It's a matter of showing skin."
Her Elton John AIDS Foundation stunt notwithstanding, Gray isn't the type to expose skin just to sell records. In fact, she'd rather wear a billboard - like the infamous dress she wore at the MTV Video Music Awards.
Gray took her fashion cues from Diana Ross ("My icon is Diana Ross in Mahogany") as well as Stevie Nicks, whose own fashion sense rarely made concessions to the male-dominated music business and, like Gray, is an extension of her persona.
Gray loves Nicks, who asked Macy to duet on her song Bombay Sapphire.
"I'm such a huge fan of hers. We went out for dinner - me, Stevie and Chris Isaak at Le Dome," Gray says of the L.A. restaurant that still represents Hollywood power and glamour more than any other Tinseltown eatery. "It was strange. We talked about all the things we'd like to do with our money and I mentioned I'd like to open a bowling alley [chain] and Stevie suggested putting celebrity faces on the bowling pins."
This is the kind of stuff Macy Gray does, between DJing, acting in films like Idlewild and launching fashion lines called Humps.
But this is also the stuff that keeps Gray busy when she's not selling records, and none of her later albums have come close to the success of her debut. It's a sore point for Gray, who quips, "I've been working," when I apparently have the gall to say, "It's nice to have you back. But you never went away, did you?"
But it's true: Her albums The Id and The Trouble With Being Myself sold a fraction of the millions that On How Life Is sold.
Gray says her old label, Epic Records, never properly promoted her. "You never know what can happen - corporations are very political. The hierarchy changes and everybody has their favourites."
Even her dress at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards didn't help much.
So Gray signed with Geffen Records for her recently released new studio album, her fourth, the very polished Big, co-executive produced by Black Eyed Pea will.i.am and featuring a wailing Natalie Cole on the rollercoaster duet Finally Made Me Happy, a song about how grateful Macy is that her man walked out the door. "Natalie came in the studio and knocked it out!"
But Gray's signature song will always be I Try.
When it lost both Song and Record of the Year at the 2000 Grammys to U2's Beautiful Day, Bono told the audience from the Grammy stage, "Macy should have won."
And what does Macy think?
"Mm-hmm. I agree."
Macy Gray
Osheaga, Parc Jean-Drapeau, Sept. 9