He briefly attended Berklee College Of Music before choosing to strike out in a folk duo. After the rapid demise of this act, Mayer relocated to Atlanta, Georgia, where he soon became a regular at songwriters' hangouts such as Eddie's Attic. In 1999, he self-released his debut album Inside Wants Out, a predominantly acoustic collection of his own material. Many of these songs were rerecorded for Room For Squares, including "Back To You", "No Such Thing", the brilliantly ironic "My Stupid Mouth" and "Neon". (Note: This album was reissued in 2002 and charted at 22 on Billboard). Mayer's melodic folk rock drew comparisons to the highly popular Dave Matthews Band, and as a result he was approached by several major labels. He signed a recording contract with the Columbia Records offshoot Aware and began work on his second album with producer John Alag¡a. Mayer was joined on this full-band recording by David LaBruyere (bass) and Nir Zidkiyahu (drums). Room For Squares proved to be a sleeper hit, and was re-released on the back of Mayer's national tour and the radio success of the single "No Such Thing". The assured quality of this album, both lyrically and musically indicated an artist of considerable talent and promise. A live CD and DVD, Any Given Thursday, consolidated Mayer's growing popularity, and the artist enjoyed further commercial success when the follow-up studio album, Heavier Things, debuted at the top of the US charts in September 2003. It confirmed that Mayer was no passing fancy and was now a major force in the new age of the singer-songwriter genre. Mayer's second full-length studio album, Heavier Things, was released in 2003 and went on to sell over 2 million units in the United States. Again, Mayer released a live album of songs culled from the album's promotional tour with the title As/Is. After a brief recording hiatus, during which Mayer ventured to form the blues group John Mayer Trio, he returned to the studio and released his third full-length studio album Continuum in 2006. Three months after Continuum's release, Mayer released an EP of demos from Continuum's early sessions entitled The Village Sessions, named after the studio it was recorded in, the Village Recorder in Los Angeles. Mayer's fourth full-length studio album, Battle Studies, was released on November 17, 2009. In addition to Mayer's solo work, he has worked extensively with other musicians and artists in genres ranging from R&B and hip-hop (with artists such as Common, Alicia Keys and Kanye West), country music (with the Dixie Chicks), blues (with Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton, B.B. King), and jazz (with Herbie Hancock, John Scofield, and Chris Botti). He was featured in "Beat It" by Fall Out Boy to play a guitar solo. He has sold over 10 million albums in the U.S. and 20 million albums worldwide.
No comments:
Post a Comment