Category : Media

On How Life Is

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The voice of Macy Gray is a wondrous thing. It can be as intimate as the wee small hours or as exciting as a packed nightclub; disarmingly sweet on one song, harsh and raspy on another. The obvious comparison is to the post-war Billie Holiday, but there are traces of other singers both legendary and little-known: Abbey Lincoln, Betty Davis, Nina Simone, Karen Dalton, Tina Turner. Yet in the end, Macy Gray sounds like no one but herself: Within eight bars of any given song on her Epic debut album, On How Life Is, The Voice is unmistakable. Over the course of ten tracks, Macy creates a musical melange of old-school soul, hip-hop, R & B, funk, and rock. She seems to shrug off format, genre, and market. Instead, On How Life Is sounds like a drive through the neighborhoods of contemporary Los Angeles: Roll down your window, and you can hear her roots and her inspirations. An almighty rolling groove binds the album's shifting emotions and eclectic arrangements. From the insinuating, head-noddin' opener 'Why Didn't You Call Me' to the poignant final track 'The Letter,' the feeling is unforced, natural, seemingly effortless. At the center of this cross-cultural melting pot is Macy Gray. On stage as on record, she cuts a commanding figure among a dozen players, belting out her personal vignettes with smoky passion. In a city dominated by just two music scenes, rock and rap, Macy has created her own musical universe, one that's simply (in her words) 'of the people.'

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