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Kristen Gray has been menaced on the phone by Iggy Pop. Lou Reed asked her to be his "doot-do-doot girl." Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics dressed her up in a red fright wig and nailed her to a wall. Funk great Bootsy Collins always wants to play with her.
What's more, this is exactly what the Lenox, Mass., native and Berkshire School graduate wants out of life.
It's never a dull moment when you're a backup singer.
To be more precise, Gray is a singer, actress, dancer and model, an all-around entertainer overflowing with abundant talent and good looks, whose services to the above-named musicians have been rendered utterly professionally and without hanky- panky on stages, TV and film sets and in recording studios in New York, London and Paris.
Since moving to New York City about seven years ago to pursue a career in the entertaiment business, Gray has recorded with Stewart, Collins, Buckethead, Ric Ocasek of the Cars and Tommy Shaw of Styx and Damn Yankees. Her vocals are prominently featured on Stewart's latest solo album, "Greetings From the Gutter," a timely bit of urban funk by the premiere producer of '80s-era synth-pop. Along with Lou Reed, she accompanied Stewart on a recent ``Late Show with David Letterman'' and on the same night at New York's hottest club, the Mercury Lounge, she helped Reed celebrate his birthday by singing backup on such classics as "Walk On the Wild Side," "Dirty Boulevard" and "Waiting for the Man."
Gray joined Stewart before 15,000 screaming fans in London at the annual Prince's Trust benefit concert in December 1994. She currently can be seen on MTV in the video for Stewart's single, "Jealousy." She was a cast member of the Broadway production of the rock opera "Senator Joe." Her first single, a dance tune called "Mighty Love," recorded with the DJ Tension, is being released in the U.S., after already having garnered extensive club and radio play in London.
When first meeting Gray, one might expect to encounter a city-toughened princess jaded by the flash of the paparazzi and late nights in downtown lofts hanging with the likes of Lou, Dave, Mick and Bootsy.
These expectations are hard to reconcile with the doe-eyed, ingenuous young beauty I met recently at a trendy bistro in her hometown of Lenox where, between sips of soda and nibbles of shrimp, the twenty- something Gray spoke with the gee-whiz enthusiasm of a Mary Tyler Moore rather than the cynicism of a Marianne Faithfull about her life and career before and after leaving the Berkshires.
"People say the music business is really tough and vicious," says Gray. "Maybe I've just been really lucky, but everybody has been so kind and sweet and really complimentary and just wonderful. No one has been diva-like or bitchy, no temper tantrums."
Luck, in the form of good timing, undoubtedly has played some role in Gray's success so far, beginning with a visit home after her first semester at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, when she lunched with a former teacher, Irene McDonald, from the Berkshire School in Sheffield, who introduced her to a friend who had a friend who was casting a Broadway show.
Within a matter of days Gray was singing for writer/director Thomas O'Horgan in his New York loft. The director of such acclaimed rock operas as "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Hair" cast Gray in "Senator Joe" (which was bound for Broadway) and two other shows he was planning to produce.
Gray's brief college career thus came to an end, and the self-described "country granola girl," who lived on a farm with no TV in central Pennsylvania before coming to Lenox in 1980, moved to the heart of bohemia, New York's Greenwich Village, where she resides to this very day.
"I was petrified," said Gray. "My dad showed me how to get to rehearsal, and that was it. For about the first month, I'd come straight home and never leave the house. I wouldn't even order in Chinese food, I was so scared of someone coming to the door.
"On my days off I'd stay in and study the music [from the show] all day. I'd look out the window. Finally I'd go down one block and then come right back, like a scared little mouse. I was just 18. It was pretty lonely at first."
Eventually Gray became familiar with her environs, and soon she grew to love New York. "It's like Halloween every day, and no one bats an eye," she says. "That's how I've always wanted to live."
Gray means that literally. Somewhat shy in real life, Gray lives for the stage. "Onstage it's such a wonderful outlet," she says. "I can be whoever I want. As a little girl I was always dressing up in costumes and putting on accents and playing with puppets and listening to records and mimicking people. My mom and dad turned the whole living room into a make-believe world. It was like this whole fantasy world, which has always felt very natural."
Her father, William "Buzz" Gray, says, "I think she's only completely happy when she's performing."
When the Grays first moved to Lenox, Kristen experienced a form of culture shock. "I was very different,'' she says. "I came from the country. I had really long hair, very hippie, and here everyone's very preppie, and they didn't understand me.
"Some kids were cruel. I was ostracized for a couple of years. I was considered sort of odd. They didn't understand. They were so into sports. I just wanted to sing and act."
Fortunately, Gray came to the right place to sing and act. She threw herself into every available after- school program in the performing arts. "I just couldn't wait for school to be over so I could run home and immediately go to dance class, then go to play rehearsal," she says.
"Kristen had a very strong presence even when she was very young," says Olga Dunn, who runs a dance school Gray attended in Great Barrington. "The thing that stands out most in my mind, she had a real generosity, extremely supportive and positive. She just had a lovely spirit about her. She was talented and she always seemed older than her years in her behavior. She didn't seem like your typical young teen-ager."
Gray also performed at the Berkshire Public Theatre. "We work with a lot of kids in the large shows, and there's always a difference between one who is just interested and one who just seems to be there right away," says former BPT artistic director Frank Bessell. "Kristen was one of the ones who just seemed to be there right away. It was like working with an old pro with her."
Gray has retained this special quality that made her exceptional as a child and adolescent. It's apparent in her appearance and her manner, but most of all, it is manifested in her voice, which is what initially attracted Bootsy Collins to her.
As a bassist and composer/arranger/musician, William "Bootsy" Collins has played pivotal roles in the development of funk music as a member of James Brown's band, the JB's, and George Clinton's P-Funk empire. And as the leader of his own group, Bootsy's Rubber Band, he has been a major force in funk for the last two decades.
At his pal Bill Laswell's house about five years ago, Collins picked up a cassette tape that was lying around and popped it into the tape player. It was a demo that Gray had recorded - her manager at the time had given it to Laswell. Collins liked what he heard, called Gray, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Collins went on to use Gray's voice on albums including "Zillatron: Lord of the Harvest" and "Blasters of the Universe." While working with Collins, she met guitarist Buckethead, who had her record the harassing phone call with Iggy Pop mentioned above for a track called "Post Office Buddy." (Incidentally, Iggy Pop, says Gray, is "real sweet." It's the same thing she says about Collins, Stewart, Jagger and Reed. No doubt she means it. Gray could squeeze sugar from a lemon.)
A year ago last March, Collins called Gray from a recording studio in New York. "I know you were a big Eurythmics fan, and I'm doing a session with Dave Stewart," he said. "Come over and say hi."
This would prove to be Gray's biggest break so far. Collins introduced Gray to Stewart, Annie Lennox's former husband and partner in the Eurythmics - one of the top bands of the '80s, whose many hits included "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)," "Here Comes the Rain Again" and "Would I Lie to You?"
Gray recounts the conversation. "He's like, `Oh, nice to meet you.' I said, `I'm a really big fan.' He says, `You want to jump in and sing?' I say, `Oh, I'd love to.' Secretly, I'm going crazy inside.
"So that day we recorded four or five songs. Dave was so concerned, asking, `Do you like the music?' So his manager says, `Okay, Kristen, so tomorrow at the same time?' That was how fast it happened."
Over the next few weeks, Gray recorded five more songs with Stewart, and her voice strongly colors the final product. Later that summer, she took part in the filming of two music videos for the album - one of which featured Gray, Bootsy Collins and other ensemble members tacked up to the wall like pieces of living artwork.
That's the how. As for the why, Bootsy Collins offers an explanation. "Kristen has a very clear, clean voice tone,'' said Collins recently. "She also can visualize the character that the song is about, and that allows me to bring the character out of her easily."
But clearly it's more than just the tone of her voice and the ability to represent a character that has made Gray the first choice of some of the rock and funk world's most successful creative artists.
Something else must make Collins continue to use this "country granola girl" to sing backup on his albums of gritty, spacey funk music.
"Kristen is special because she's of another world," continues Collins. "She sees beauty in all forms of life and music. That is very special and rare these days. We believe in Kristen's ability to sing, write music, to perform. Maybe one day `Kristen Gray' just might be one of the brightest stars to ever shine. She's already on the top of my charts.
COPYRIGHT 1996 Seth Rogovoy. All Rights Reserved.
This article first appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on February 8, 1996.
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