- Macy Gray will perform at the Birchmere Music Hall on Nov. 4, 2025 (via Facebook)
Grammy winner Macy Gray is performing her greatest hits at The Birchmere Music Hall in Alexandria next month, and spoke with ALXnow for a few minutes.
Gray is performing across the country this and next month on the final leg of an international tour marking the 25-year anniversary of the release of her hit album “On How Life Is”. The Nov. 4 concert is her second appearance performing in Alexandria, after she sang at The Birchmere in 2023, and she says she’ll be performing the entire album, plus a few covers and new songs.
Gray says it’s like going into a time warp to see audiences reacting to her songs in On How Life Is.
“It’s awesome, because it’s been a long time, and to see people still know all the words, how they get excited when the songs start,” Gray said. “It’s pretty cool to see that reaction so many years later. It’s actually pretty wild. I wasn’t expecting that.”
Gray said that when she wrote her biggest hit, “I Try”, in the 1990s, she wrote it at home, and that her then-husband was watching a basketball game and turned up the TV when she tried to perform it for him.
“That was before I even got signed,” she said. “I was at home with my ex-husband. We were going through it, and we were in two different rooms, and I had a guitar, and I think I knew how to play about five or six chords on the guitar. I just started playing the chords, and it just came to me —fell from the sky into my brain. I put the lyrics together, then ran upstairs and played it for my ex-husband. He was like, ‘Yeah, that’s cool.’ He was watching basketball, and I didn’t know if he even really listened. As soon as I started singing, he turned the TV up.”
Gray continued, “I went for a long time not even thinking that the song was a big deal, even after it came out. I would play my songs for people and I wouldn’t even play that because of the way he reacted.”
Gray had some advice for young artists: practice and be bold in promoting themselves.
“You’ve got to hustle,” she said. “You gotta have the courage to walk up to somebody in the mall and say, ‘Hey, I got a new record out. Listen to it.’ You’ve got to be scared of nothing when it comes to promoting yourself, and you’re going to make a million mistakes. But there’s one thing in common with successful people. They don’t quit.”
