John Mayer changes his tune
By ALAN SCULLEY
SPECIAL TO THE REGISTER

June 14, 2007

John Mayer doesn't necessarily want to forgo his image as a sensitive acoustic pop singer/songwriter. But it's not the image he's courting with his third CD, "Continuum."

"I'm not trying to get away from anything. I'm just trying to get to something else," Mayer said in a recent phone interview.

"I'll come back and do an acoustic record. It's just I really felt like I had played one part of the chess board as much as I could play it. It wasn't exciting me anymore, and also by the time I got to the middle of my second record, there were so many people doing what I had been doing."

Fans will be able to decide for themselves how successful Mayer is with his new mission when he performs at Wells Fargo Arena on Monday.

In 2005, Mayer dropped a strong hint there was more to his musical tastes and abilities. That's when he joined noted drummer Steve Jordan and veteran session bassist Pino Palladino to tour as the John Mayer Trio and record the bluesy live CD, "Try!"

The trio format allowed Mayer to cut loose on guitar and show a little-heard side of his music that existed long before he shot to pop stardom with the 2002 CD "Room For Squares."

As a teen growing up in Connecticut, Mayer's musical world turned the day he heard late blues-rock guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan.

By 15, Mayer was playing in clubs, ripping on his instrument. He looked to all the world like someone destined for guitar-god land.

"I would be lying if I didn't say I was natural guitar player," Mayer said. "I'm not a natural singer. Singing is an applied science to me. But playing guitar, I never think about (it)."

Instead of making blues-influenced rock his signature, Mayer turned toward pop and how to enrich a well-crafted song with his gift for guitar.

His talent for pop music became apparent when he self-released his 2000 debut "Inside Wants Out." Even stronger was "Room for Squares," first released on Aware Records, then rereleased by Columbia Records.

Columbia reaped immediate dividends when singles "Bigger Than My Body" and "Your Body is a Wonderland" became major hits. By the time it finished its run, "Room for Squares" had sold more than 3 million copies. Mayer's follow-up studio CD, "Heavier Things," was another huge success, on the strength of "Daughters," Mayer's most popular single yet.

Even if "Continuum" doesn't match the popularity of his first two solo CDs, it figures to further enhance Mayer's reputation as a songwriter, guitarist and performer. The new CD won a Grammy in February for Pop Vocal Album and spawned a single in "Waiting for the World to Change," a top-five single on the Billboard charts.

Mayer still writes and plays pop songs. But "Continuum" immediately sounds different from the first two solo CDs. Instead of the fairly straightforward acoustic pop of the earlier CDs, there's an earthiness, soulfulness and intimacy that Mayer didn't fully achieve on "Room for Squares" and "Heavier Things."

Mayer said he achieved exactly what he wanted with "Continuum," which has sold more than 1 million copies.

"I don't know how to explain it fully," Mayer said. "It's some sort of spiritual thing where you sit down and you write what kind of shines through. ... It's very pure, very honest.

"I think what really comes through and what people are responding to is that intimacy," he said. "I could be a stickler for details on every level sonically, but then you miss what's really important ... I was a lot more concerned with the heart and soul of a record. This record has the heart and soul of an artist's first record, I think. It's a little more from-the-hip."

Mayer said he plans to showcase some of the "Continuum" material in Des Moines and on the rest of his tour.

"I'm just thrilled with the way this record sounds live," Mayer said. "It confirms every hope that I had and expectation that I had for writing these tunes and thinking that they would be infinitely playable songs."

Originally found here.