Macy Gray Trivia | 43 facts about the R&B singer

Macy Gray is an American R&B and soul singer. She is known for her singing style heavily influenced by Billie Holiday.

So let’s dive into some trivia and facts about the singer.

1. Her real name is Natalie Renée McIntyre
2. She was born on September 6, 1967
3. She is known by her stage name Macy Gray
4. Macy Gray is an American R&B and soul singer and actress
5. She is known for her distinctive raspy voice and a singing style heavily influenced by Billie Holiday
6. Macy Gray has released ten studio albums
7. She received five Grammy Award nominations, winning one
8. She has appeared in a number of films
9. Including Training Day, Spider-Man, Scary Movie 3, Lackawanna Blues, Idlewild, For Colored Girls, and The Paperboy
10. Gray is best known for her international hit single “I Try”
11. The single is from her multi-platinum debut album On How Life Is
12. Natalie McIntyre was born in Canton, Ohio
13. She is the daughter of Laura McIntyre, a math schoolteacher, and Otis Jones
14. Her stepfather was a steelworker, and her sister is a biology teacher
15. She has a younger brother, Nate, who owns a gym in West Philadelphia and was featured on the season five finale of Queer Eye
16. She began piano lessons at age seven.
17. A childhood bicycle mishap resulted in her noticing a mailbox of a man named Macy Gray
18. She used the name in stories she wrote and later decided to use it as her stage name
19. She was late developing and did not learn to hold conversation until just before her tenth birthday
20. Macy Gray attended school with Brian Warner (later known as musician Marilyn Manson) although they did not know each other
21. She attended more than one high school, including a boarding school which asked her to leave due to her behavior
22. She attended the University of Southern California and studied scriptwriting
23. While attending the University of Southern California, she agreed to write songs for a friend
24. A demo session was scheduled for the songs to be recorded by another singer, but the vocalist failed to appear
25. So Gray recorded them herself
26. Macy Gray started forming bands and writing songs just for fun and then she really got into it and got attached to it
27. Then a friend of hers asked me to be a singer in his jazz band
28. He gave her all these jazz CDs and Macy Gray studied all these different singers and kind of taught herself how to sing for a gig
29. She didn’t take it seriously until later
30. She then met writer-producer Joe Solo while working as a cashier in Beverly Hills
31. Together, they wrote a collection of songs and recorded them in Solo’s studio
32. The demo tape gave Gray the opportunity to sing at jazz cafés in Los Angeles
33. Although Gray did not consider her unusual voice desirable for singing
34. Atlantic Records signed her
35. She began recording her debut record but was dropped from the label upon the departure of A&R man Tom Carolan, who had signed her to the label
36. Macy returned to Ohio but in 1997 Los Angeles based Zomba Label Group Senior VP A&R man Jeff Blue, convinced her to return to music and signed her to a development deal
37. She started recording new songs based on her life experiences, with a new sound, and began shopping her to record labels
38. In 1998, she landed a record deal with Epic Records
39. She performed on “Love Won’t Wait,” a song on the Black Eyed Peas’ debut album Behind the Front
40. Mace Gray was married to Tracy Hinds, a mortgage broker, for about two years
41. They divorced prior to her rise to prominence
42. hey have three children: Aanisah, Mel, and Happy
43. She opened the Macy Gray Music Academy in 2005