Review: Macy Gray and the imitation Stone

Geoff Carter

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2001 | 9:14 a.m.

Somewhere along the line, the name of award-winning vocalist Macy Gray got attached to that of jazz legend Billie Holiday. After seeing the funk-soul sister do her thing at Rain in the Desert -- the gorgeous new nightclub at the Palms -- last night, I can refute that comparison. Gray is no Holiday -- she's a Stone.

A Family Stone, to be exact. Gray's woozy, lost-my-place performing style -- coupled with her near-unintelligible syntax, a kind of clipped, rhythmic Esperanto -- adds up to Sylvester Stewart, AKA Sly Stone of Sly and the Family Stone.

Like Stone, Gray trucks with a large band, seems more at ease singing to a wall than a crowd, and overcomes her apparent obstacles to be a charismatic and gifted performer, albeit one in bad need of a diction lesson, or two, or ten.

Opening almost two hours late with "Relating to a Psychopath," Gray and her 13-piece band ripped through a set rich with horns, turntable whiz-bang and maybe five discernible phrases. I understood enough to know Gray turned in credible versions of "Gimme All Your Lovin' Or I Will Kill You," "Why Didn't You Call Me" and the Fatboy Slim collaboration "Demons," punctuating the spaces between the jams with friendly incoherence. Sly Stone would be proud.

The Rain crowd was alternately dazzled and bored. Gray had to really work for their attention, and they only truly perked up during "Oblivion," the lyrics which were described by handwritten signs held by a member of her band, Bob Dylan-style. It was a fun fluke -- Gray probably didn't realize we really needed the closed-captioning. If she did know, she plainly didn't care: the mark of a talent following her own muse.

Above all things, Sly Stone would have loved that part of Macy Gray -- though he would still have been pissed about her being so late.