Macy Gray

TORONTO - After her 1999 debut album, "On How Life Is," racked up sales in the millions, Macy Gray's was a name that music fans couldn't stop gabbing about.

And on a recent cloudy day in Burbank, Calif., the 39-year-old singer confides she expects the same gaggle of attention when her latest disc, "BIG," hits stores next week.

"I'm just really excited," she says by telephone from the Graciela Hotel near Universal Studios. "I'm going to be everywhere and go everywhere that'll have me."

For the throngs of soul-pop fans who've wondered what became of Gray after her third record - 2003's commercial flop, "The Trouble with Being Myself" - disappeared from shelves, the answer is simple - she went back to school.

"I'm a very big student of my craft and I'll listen to everything," she says. "When I was born, soul music was still happening, Motown, Cracker Jack. The Beatles and Led Zeppelin were still around. Hip-hop came out while I was still in grade school.

"Then MTV came along in the '80s, which was my first exposure to rock 'n' roll and pop."

In fact, growing up in Canton, Ohio, she had friends who'd listen to oldies before sticking on some hair metal. "My favourite bands were Motley Crue and Guns n' Roses," she laughs.

"I've just been lucky that I grew up at a time when there were all these big transitions in music.

"I think that anybody that's around my age, if they've paid attention, they've heard all that stuff too. And if they're making music today, all that's going to come up at some point."

Without a record deal for over a year following "The Trouble with Being Myself's" disappointing sales, Gray inked a contract with Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am's label in 2005, and slowly began plotting her return to the stage.

"I've known Will a long, long time. He's like my brother. I actually called him up one day 'cause I had a song I thought he might want to use.

"But after I played it for him, he told me he'd just gotten his own label and that he wanted to sign me. So we did it."

Flanked by mega-hit producer Ron Fair (Pussycat Dolls, Christina Aguilera), Will.i.am spent a great deal of time in a Hollywood, Calif., sound booth encouraging Gray to "listen to all kinds of music," helping to instill the various musical flavours that paint "BIG's" 12 tracks.

And it works.

Gray slaps her raspy vocals around a funkified sampling of James Brown's "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" on "Ghetto Love," gets Fergie to help squeeze every note out of the nostalgia-fueled "Glad You're Here," and rustles up sassy pop hooks for the glam "Everybody."

Elsewhere, she borrows Will's-main squeeze Justin Timberlake for the skating rink swirl of "Okay" and "Get Out's" plucky, guitar-pop, and then teams with ballad-queen Natalie Cole for the big-band swoop that passes through the record's first single, "Finally Made Me Happy."

Gray even manages to coax Will out of his producer's chair for a tag-team romp on the Prince-styled "Treat Me Like Your Money."

"Will approaches music differently from any of the other producers I've worked with," she says thoughtfully. "He's always looking at the big picture, always looking at the future. More than just getting the song done or getting a beat down, he's asking questions like, 'Who's going to relate to this?' 'Who's going to dance to this?' 'What should the video look like?'

"He's a very big thinker," she continues. " And you can hear that in his records. They're very fresh. The thing he did for NaS, his whole different take on hip-hop by putting on a rock 'n' roll beat was genius."

No stranger to the tense political climate in her home country, Gray is wearing her politics on "BIG's" sleeve with an endorsement for Democrat presidential hopeful Barak Obama. "My country definitely needs a big change," she says.

"I would love to see him get elected. And if me saying, 'Elect Barak Obama in 2008,' influences people to go out and vote for him, then great."

But isn't it also about Gray grabbing back some much-overdue ice time from upstart soul divas like Amy Winehouse, Corinne Bailey Rae and Joss Stone?

"I think it's a blessing to be able to do this," she says. "There are millions of people out there ready to take your place if you f**k it up. So you just have to take care of (your career) like it's a baby and not take things for granted.

"There's a lot of rock star myths that we can do whatever we want, treat people however we want, be drunk all the time, show up late, but that doesn't get you anywhere. The thing I can tell you is, if you get this, don't f**k it up."

Macy Gray's "BIG" is in stores Tuesday, March 27.