Like many people around the country, singer-songwriter Macy Gray made a slight pivot during the pandemic. She’s still singing and acting, roles she has been successful at for over a quarter of a century, but musically she decided to “reset” somewhat over the last couple of years.
Gray, who is playing the Greenwich Odeum in East Greenwich on Sunday, October 1, with her band The California Jet Club, recently released Reset, a pandemic album and perhaps the most political release of her career. I learned about the new album and more from the raspy-voiced singer in a recent phone call.
“It’s about the idea of resetting, of doing things differently this time around,” she explained. “What if we reset the way we treat each other, what if we reset our country, our planet? Because that’s all kind of stuck in the 1950s, you know what I mean? That was really the concept, to invite people to the idea of doing things differently, maybe we’re not doing it right.”
Best known for her 2001 Grammy-award-winning love song “I Try,” Gray has never shied away from controversy.
“I feel like my job is to express myself,” said Gray. “I mean that’s what I get paid for, that’s what I do. As an artist, you kind of have to make a decision to embrace that and be ok with it. Or you can totally play it safe and be a straight-up entertainer, and nobody knows much about you and what you think. And that’s cool, that probably works best, but I was just never good at that.”
Gray is known worldwide for her distinctive voice and has played to huge crowds overseas. She’s heading to Europe after an East Coast swing this fall.
“I’m from a little city in Ohio, and I never thought about places like Norway or Russia, Ukraine, any place like that,” she explained. “It’s been a huge blessing for me to get to see the world, and that’s really shaped me as a person. There’s nothing more educational than traveling and seeing different cultures, (trying) different foods, and stuff like that. To be able to do it and make a living and be on stage and play for people who don’t even really understand what I’m saying has really been wild and eye-opening to what the world is all about.”
Gray recalled numerous career highlights including the first time she played the Glastonbury Festival in England. “I remember getting on stage; this old couple somehow got on stage and ran across the stage naked and just waved at me. That was my first experience of people just losing their shit over music, over my music. I was very flattered,” she laughed.
Gray is also busy overseeing her charity, MyGood.org. The non-profit supports families of those killed in police shootings.
“MyGood was born in 2020 when all that chaos was going on, police shootings. We formed a foundation to help out the families of those victims who were left behind. You hear stories about Brianna Taylor and George Floyd’s family getting all these millions of dollars. But 99% of those families get absolutely nothing. People skip over that part, (the consequences) are very economic; you never hear about a Black man or a white man in Cape Cod or Beverly Hills getting shot. We miss some of the core of the problem, which is why it never gets fixed. A lot of the families are already low-income, and they lose a lot, they get stuck with funerals and lawyers bills. That’s where we step in. The biggest request is mental health services; they all want somebody to talk to, and most of those families can’t afford therapy and often end up in tragic situations.”
In addition to her music, Gray has a long career in acting and is voicing a new cartoon, due out soon on Disney+. “It’s called Sneaks; it’s about a culture of gym shoes, how sneakers really feel, how sneakers live, what they’re thinking,” she said.
Tickets are still available for Sunday’s show. Click here for tickets and more on the show.
