His self-released 1999 EP Inside Wants Out led to a showcase gig at South By Southwest Festival, he subsequently signed his record deal with Aware, a sub-label of Columbia Records, and in 2001 – a mere five years after he bought that SRV Strat – Room For Squares set him on his present, stellar course.
He went viral, and when real success came, it came fast. With Mayer strong-minded and intent on pursuing a pop/popular course, he split from Cook and gigged relentlessly to establish a solo career, plugging in his Martin OM-28 acoustic alone on Atlanta’s small stages, fostering his fanbase, shrewdly encouraging his followers to spread the word by sharing his songs on Napster. His teenage power trio, Another Roadside Attraction, played amped-up blues covers à la SRV, and by the time his next group, Villanova Junction, was playing dances at Fairfield High School circa ’96, he had saved enough to buy himself a Stevie Ray Vaughan Signature Strat, his main axe for years. He played obsessively, emulating his heroes, soon learning the language of the blues on his first electric, a Squier Strat. His dad rented him an acoustic guitar from a local music store and he took lessons. Vaughan’s MTV-friendly image and rocky take on the blues offered a perfect entry point into that world for a white teenager from the suburbs, and opened the door to Jimi Hendrix, Cream/Bluesbreakers-era Clapton, Buddy Guy, Bonnie Raitt, Robert Cray and the three Kings – BB, Albert and Freddie. When Mayer was 13, a friend gave him a mixtape featuring the blistering Texas blues of Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble, and he was hooked.
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(Image credit: Paul Natkin/WireImage)Īmong the artists soundtracking his youth were Clapton (in his shoulder-padded pomp, enjoying a renaissance with hit albums August and Journeyman) plus Toto, The Police, Huey Lewis & The News, Phil Collins (in Genesis and solo), Elton John and Steve Winwood. As a child of the '80s he was welded to MTV, soaking up all the slickly produced, deftly played soft rock, yacht-rock, MOR and AOR the new-fangled channel could offer. I don’t think he even knows how good he is.” It was the blues that got him into all this.īorn in 1977, Mayer grew up in Fairfield, Connecticut. “He’s a master,” Clapton said of Mayer recently. Mayer went to the PRS factory personally and sifted through every pickup, neck and component, in the quest for the exact right tool for the job.Īnd just as he will gladly join those A-listers of pop, rap and RnB, Mayer’s equally comfortable ripping it up with legends of the blues, such as BB King, Buddy Guy and Eric Clapton. I don’t think he even knows how good he is Eric Claptonġ0 years later and about to embark on his first tour with remaining members of the Grateful Dead, he approached luthier Paul Reed Smith to make him a guitar. He was hands-on at the Fender Custom Shop for the production of his beloved ‘Black1’, the Relic Strat strapped to him on the cover of his 2003 US No.1 album, Heavier Things. He can happily expound on the relative merits of different six-strings, cables and amps, right down to the attributes of certain tube brands.
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