John Mayer | Artist
John Clayton Mayer is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist born 1977 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. A talented guitarist with a plaintive vocal style, Mayer's confessional singer/songwriter style and thoroughgoing musical integrity has earned major chart success and millions of fans worldwide. Mayer attended Berklee College of Music in Boston but left and moved to Atlanta in 1997 with friend and fellow musician Clay Cook. Together, they formed a short-lived two-man band called Lo-Fi Masters. After their split, Mayer continued to play local clubs, refining his skills and gaining a following. After his appearance at the 2000 SXSW festival, he was signed to Columbia Records, which released his first EP Inside Wants Out. His following two studio albums; Room for Squares (2001) and Heavier Things (2003) both were a commercial success. In 2003, he won the Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for his single "Your Body is a Wonderland." By 2005 Mayer had moved away from acoustic music and begun performing the blues and rock music that had originally influenced him as a musician, including collaborations with blues artists such as B.B. King, Buddy Guy and Eric Clapton. The newly formed John Mayer Trio, with the first-rate rhythm section duo Pino Palladino (bass) and Steve Jordan (drums), released the excellent live album Try! in 2005 and his third studio album Continuum in 2006. Both albums received positive reviews and Continuum earned Mayer a 2007 Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album. He also won Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for "Waiting on the World to Change". That album was followed by Battle Studies (2009) which signalled a return to a pop style. After having several controversial incidents with the media, including candid comments about two of his celebrity girlfriends Jessica Simpson and Jennifer Aniston, Mayer withdrew from public life and began work on his fifth studio album, Born and Raised. However, the discovery of a granuloma on his vocal cords delayed the release of the album until May 2012, and forced him to cancel all performances. The album received a generally favourable reception, though was less commercially successful than his previous work. Mayer began performing as a singer again in January 2013, and that year released his sixth studio album, Paradise Valley, which has country music influences. Over the following decade Mayer released only two further studio albums, plus several excellent live albums. Recommended LP releases include the studio recordings Continuum (2006) and In Search of Everything (2017), plus the live releases Try! (2005) and Where the Light Is: John Mayer Live in Los Angeles (2008). Also recommended is the Bob Weir and John Mayer live recording Pine Creek Lodge, Livingston, MT (Aug 8, 2022). In 2015, former members of the Grateful Dead; Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart joined with Mayer and two other musicians to form the band Dead & Company. It was the latest of several reunions of the band's surviving members (without Phil Lesh) since Jerry Garcia's death in 1995. They continued to play shows until 2023. Mayer's career outside of music extends to television hosting, comedy, and writing; he has written for magazines such as Esquire. He supports various causes and has performed at charity benefits. He is a watch aficionado, with a collection he values in the "tens of millions" of dollars.
Artist Website: johnmayer.com
Featured Albums: John Mayer
Related Artists: John Mayer Trio, Grateful Dead
