"I REMEMBER the first night I landed in LA, I was expecting for all this stuff to be goin' on, and there was nobody out! That was my first impression: 'Where's everybody at?' They build it up to be such a big action town but it's not, it's pretty laid back."
Born and bred in Canton, Ohio, Macy Gray could've been just another blow-in looking for a shot at the Hollywood title. An enrollee in the screenwriting programme of the USC Film School (a period which informs 'I've Committed Murder' from her debut album), Gray "wanted to be like a movie big shot. I wanted to produce movies, sit behind a desk and tell everybody what to do, like a VP or somethin'."
However, she couldn't help but feel more comfortable around players rather than Players, having been weaned on everything from hip-hop to whitebread FM radio rock at her predominantly white boarding school back home, not to mention putting in seven years of classical piano training. Hardly surprising then, that her first break came via the music industry. Gray had contributed the lyric to a track written by one of her friends, and when the scheduled singer didn't show at the recording date, she was asked to deputise. To the ingenue's surprise, when that demo began to circulate, it was her vocal prowess that made people sit up and take notice.
By April 1998 Gray had inked a deal with Epic, and that summer was spent in a variety of Hollywood studios with her writing partners; programmer Darryl Swann, keyboardist Jeremy Ruzumna and friends DJ Kiilu and former Chili Pepper Arrik Marshall. The result is On How Life Is, an album that was actually released as far back as the summer of this year, but didn't start making an impact until the second single 'I Try' picked up radio play, recently breaching the UK Top 20.
That tune's as good a place as any for the uninitiated to start; an uplifting gospel godspell based around the old can't-live-without-'em conundrum which showcases Macy's exquisite phrasing at its best. Bessie Smith, Sly Stone, Stevie Wonder and Billie Holiday are all reasonable reference points - that rare combination of delicacy and guts, a worldly-wise-before-its-time tone capable of conveying the whole emotional gamut. And okay, Gray may not have Aretha's range, but when a girl can also get you writing names like Pop Staples, Ray Charles and even Jimmy Scott, it seems thick-necked to nitpick.
"Those are obviously influences of mine, but I definitely got my own thing goin'," she says, holed up in a hotel room in Pittburgh PA, speaking in a parched voice easily as distinctive as the one on the record; a li'l ol' crone's rasp punctuated by the odd guttural chuckle.
"I really like when journalists make up their own comparisons," she continues. "Like one journalist said I sounded like a love interest for Yogi Bear, or Betty Boop in decline or something. I think that's cool. I think that if you listen to Billie Holiday and me, we sound totally different. It's not that I mind being compared to her, but I don't think anybody can do her - she's been a star for like, 80 years now, she's been around longer than Marilyn Monroe."

Before we go any further, allow this recruit to confess a musical prejudice: I've never been a big fan of modern r...b. Frankly, bedroom-eyes guys like Luther Vandross and even Eric Benet give me the runs. But Macy Gray is a different story - in soundbite terms, On How Life Is could be termed this year's Miseducation Of . . . except with a less lofty approach: Gray's gonna have a little fun while tryin' for Zion.
And if you accept the gross generalisation that great soul records can be roughly grouped into two opposing disciplines - those that roll the limo window down, soaking in the pulse of the street (Marvin's What's Goin' On) and those that keep it shut, exploring their own head-space (Sly's There's A Riot Goin' On) - then Gray's work falls squarely in the former camp. Her debut thrives on an old-fashioned communal looseness, an open-house feel that renders the grooves warm and informal.
But although the record is undoubtedly a product of a vibrant metropolitan environment, it also suggests a village mentality as common to the West of Ireland as the North of Africa - these songs were reared by many mothers. So, one might surmise that the ambience of The We Ours - the after-hours coffee shop/club hang-out Macy founded, where the likes of The Roots or Tricky might drop in, apropos of nothing - spilled over into the studio sessions. Plus, the presence of elder berries like Funkadelic's Blackbird McKnight and Tower Of Power maestro Lenny Castro undoubtedly put manners on the younger musicians, with the result that tracks like 'Do Something' and 'I Can't Wait To Meetchu' boast punchy ensemble playing, plus crisp string and horn charts.
"It was pretty wild," Macy reflects, "because me and Andy (Slater, Fiona Apple and Wallflowers producer) used to go back and forth on who would play what, because all the older guys were his friends, and all the younger guys were my friends. We would have three different guitar players on one song, and then when we mixed, we'd pick who was hot. I think that's why the record has a lot of personality, it's the way it was done. Like on some of the songs, we had three different reels of tape, 64 tracks, eight different guitar tracks, two different bass players . . . it's weird how different musicians are and how everybody approaches the song in a different way. And some of the stuff we did, like 'Sex O Matic', 'Can't Wait To Meet You' and 'Still', were all recorded live over a mixture of different players. It came out pretty cool."

For all the technical considerations though, the key factor is that much ephemeralised commodity: soul. At 29, Macy's no coddled progeny: the grain in the voice and the grit in the songs ("In my last years with him there were bruises on my face/In my dawn and new day/I finally got away" - 'Still') testify to that.
"Maybe if I had thought about it I wouldn't have put that on," she considers. "I just went in and did my thing, I really didn't think about what people were gonna think. The whole record is personal, and that's the only way I know how to write. It really wasn't like a conscious decision to put anything risque on it. But still, somebody e-mailed me the other day and was telling me that after she heard 'Still' she didn't feel alone anymore, stuff like that."
On the other hand, Gray's repertoire also encompasses the kind of satyr-ical carnality one might associate with Prince or the (George) Clinton administration. Check out 'Sex-O-Matic Venus Freak', and 'Caligula'("Hush the neighbours hear you moanin' and groanin'/But I can't help it/'Specially when we be bonin'"), cheeky pelvic thrusts this writer would be far better equipped to describe if only he had a degree in x-rated ebonics.
"I think it's all in the way a girl carries herself," is Gray's verdict. "If you present yourself as raunchy then that's what the media jumps on, y'know? But I think if you sing about it and it's just there, I don't think anybody really worries about it unless you do it really tacky, and you force it just to make everybody take notice or whatever. But if you just let it flow and you're not out there trying to be raunchy or sexy, then I think you'll be alright." n
* On How Life Is is out now on Sony.