Sophomore slump is often nothing more than the indifference of critics and fans who are still digging the first record. Macy Gray got about as big as anyone can get with her 1999 debut, On How Life Is. The freak queen of rock ’n’ soul combined a Jimi Hendrix sense of style with a vocal sound that reminded most of James Brown on helium. Top-40 stations around here are still spinning that breakthrough single, “I Try.” Gray’s 2001 followup, The Id, built further on both her strengths and her weaknesses. What she lacks in real range as a vocalist, she makes up for in straight funk, no chaser. Perhaps most important of all, Macy’s a good CEO: She has a special talent for working with great co-writers and a backup band that knows how to groove in the great soul tradition of “Cantaloupe Island” and “The House that Jack Built.”
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