On John Mayer

On his music career and why I like him.

I’m not sure where to start here, so please allow me to just go off.

The image most people have of John Mayer is far from who he actually is, which is mostly due to a pre-#MeToo cancellation of him for being a megachad. John Mayer is the best living blues guitarist, yet he’s usually thought of as just a fuckboy pop star who once said the N word (true btw). Handsome horny white men are the most oppressed class, never forget this!

It’s better for me to start this with a story about my guitar teacher. If I said his first name, anyone who grew up in my neighborhood would figure out who I am because he was a local legend. He was an older man, probably in his late 60’s. He looked like ZZ Top and lived in squalor by choice. He charged a very small amount of money ($40/hour) because he wasn’t interested in money. He wanted just enough money to buy cigarettes and food. His guitar looked like a piece of shit but it sounded extremely good. He found it in a dumpster and tuned it up as much as he could. It was his baby. A Fender American Strat that looked a bit like this, except much dustier.

He taught from his extremely small studio apartment where he chain smoked the entire session. His place wasn’t very well-kept. He was dirty. He was a bit of a dick. But he was cool. Extremely cool. He was his own thing.

He grew up in the 60’s. Not only did he have a vast history of blues and rock music but he saw the legends dozens of times and even played with some of them. He probably didn’t make a career out of his pristine musicianship because he was too pure, possibly to a fault. Who knows. But he had a lot of good stories. Sometimes I would ask him what he thought about music, culture and life stuff and we’d just shoot the shit for half the session. He only accepted clients by referral, I was introduced to him by a good friend who was years ahead of me as a guitarist. He placed extreme emphasis on the fundamentals and choosing feel over theory and technique. I was very lucky to have been taught by him. Unfortunately, he died less than a year after I started seeing him.

His wake was packed with guys from my town who were students of his. Unfortunately I was not very welcome there. His most talented and frankly blessed student, who he taught since he was 5, despised me because his girlfriend would cheat on him with me anytime they were fighting. Many of his most dedicated students were taught by him for over a decade and I only saw him for a year, so I definitely wasn’t “one of them.” I was the new guy who everybody hated. When I walked in, it felt like the music stopped as everyone stared at me. I knelt against his coffin and said a little prayer knowing that all these guys were thinking “Who does this asshole think he is showing up here?” and then promptly walked out. His girlfriend was waiting in my car actually. It was kind of funny. A few years later he confronted me in a bar, I apologized and we hugged it out. I knew he still didn’t like me though, still surprised he didn’t knock me out.

Back to the story. I show up to my first lesson and he goes “Alright kid. What do you like? Tell me some of your favorite guitarists.” I said “Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix.” He grabs his guitar and plays the intro to ‘Little Wing’ seamlessly. An impressive lick to play but not impossible to learn. He wasn’t flexing, he just felt like playing it. It’s a beautiful intro riff. Then he asks me “What’s your favorite Zeppelin song?” I wanted to give him something more difficult. I said “You ever hear that live recording of ‘White Summer/Black Mountainside’?” He goes “Oh hell yeah, of course.” and played it like it was nothing. Blew my mind. Master level.

“You like any modern guitarists?” he asked. I replied “I know it’s not exactly what he’s known for, but John Mayer is actually really good. I think he’s secretly an amazing blues guitarist.” He goes “Oh yeah. Mayer. Disciple of Stevie Ray Vaughan, clearly. Lets see if he keeps pretending he’s a pop artist. Mayer’s got serious chops, I like him.”

How John Mayer Manipulated The Music Industry

John Mayer became famous in 2001 after ‘Your Body Is a Wonderland’ became the most famous pop song of the year. His debut album, Room for Squares, won a Grammy award and got to the top 10 of the Billboard chart, which was very hard to do pre-streaming. That song mainly appealed to teenage girls and middle-aged women. Men weren’t into it, it would be like men being really into the Jonas Bothers. At the time, he was just another pop star, a young guy with baby face. We’ve seen it before.

Until I heard Neon. An upbeat, somewhat dark, chill song that makes you feel like you’re walking home in NYC alone reflecting on your life during a safer time. The lyrics described a very particular type of woman.

She comes and goes and comes and goes
Like no one can
She comes and goes and no one knows
She's slipping through my hands

She's always buzzing just like
Neon, neon
Neon, neon
Who knows how long, how long, how long
She can go before she burns away

But the lyrics aren’t exactly what gripped me. For any guitar players reading this, you know the ‘Neon’ riff is not easy to play.

Hearing ‘Neon’ made it clear that this guy from Connecticut is actually a very advanced guitarist and is hiding his power level. I buy the album, check to see if he had a team of writers like most pop artists and nope — it was all him. Very impressive. I listen to the album and notice it’s very good. I also notice there’s a bonus track called Lenny, a cover of a very beautiful Stevie Ray Vaughan song. For those who don’t know, Stevie Ray Vaughan was a cleaner, more aggressive, whiter version of Jimi Hendrix. Extremely talented, top 3 of all time. Some other favorites from that album and that time period of his career: 83, Why Georgia, and an original that wasn’t on the album but he played live — Covered In Rain. Not only is the song very heavy on the feels, but guitarheads reading this should pay attention to the solo about halfway into it.

Anyway, for John Mayer to cover an obscure Stevie Ray Vaughan song on his debut, very mainstream album, all while maintaining the notion that he’s just another pop artist, was him signaling to the guitarists out there that you should probably just wait to see what he has up his sleeve. This was an extremely intelligent and manipulative way to become famous. He knew that if he just kicked down the door with an amazing blues album, it would only appeal to guitarheads and he’d never get mass appeal, would never be come a rockstar and the life-changing perks that come along with that, and his artistic talents would never be recognized. You have to hand it to him.

I’m not going to give a history lesson of his entire discography one by one, I promise. That’d be boring. But it’s hard to talk about an artist’s body of work without highlighting their love and sex life, even more so in John Mayer’s case.

As his popularity grew, Mayer became known as a chad. He started dating Jennifer Love Hewitt, who at the time was an extremely hot brunette actress with a great rack.

Okay, an up-and-coming pop star is dating a hot actress. Nothing new. His next album, Heavier Things, released in 2003, was good but not as good or popular as Room for Squares. He incorporated bluesier elements into it but it wasn’t a full-on blues album yet. Daughters is on that album, a song about women with daddy issues.

From there, he started dating Jessica Simpson, a pop singer who at the time was the ultimate sexy southern belle. Another huge celebrity. Big statement.

It was this relationship and an interview he did with Playboy in 2010 that tarnished his reputation forever and why he is still extremely mischaracterized today. Mayer described Jessica Simpson as ‘sexual napalm’ and said the N word in the same interview.

Yep, the media went after him hard after that. Whatever the equivalent of #MeToo was in 2010, it happened to him very aggressively.

Now lets get back to where we were. After his relationship with Jessica Simpson ended he wrote his next album, which requires an entire section for itself.

Continuum, Acquiring An Artistic License and Battle Studies

Continuum was released 3 years after Heavier Things in 2006. The guitarheads were waiting for his next album because we were eager to know when he was going to finally go mask-off. And that he did. He did more than anyone could have seen coming, because in my opinion, Continuum is a masterpiece.