OK, I'll admit to not being too jazzed about this one. When I thought of John Mayer, I couldn't shake this image:
But
this was a student suggestion, and I am a river unto my people so here
we are! And I'm happy to report that I wound up enjoying the
experience much more than I thought I would – so, as is now
customary, let's begin with a short potted history before tackling
some licks.
Now,
this is a little uncanny – John Mayer not only shares my initials,
he damn near shares my exact birthday – October 16 1977 – and his
seminal guitar inspiration moment was Marty McFly's performance of
“Johnny B. Goode” in Back To The Future... good man. I'm already
sold on the guy. However, whereas I had a few false starts before
finally getting into guitar in a big way at 17, Mayer was straight
there, his dad renting him a guitar at age 13 and a neighbour giving
him a Stevie Ray Vaughan cassette. This led to the young John
becoming fascinated with the blues and starting to delve back into
history, discovering the Kings, Otis Rush and Buddy Guy – again,
very relatable, I started doing something similar after catching Rory
Gallagher's Old Grey Whistle Test performance when the BBC screened
it following his untimely death.
He
would play and practice the guitar with singular focus throughout his
teenage years – to the point where his parents began to worry and
took him to see a child psychiatrist – and in 1997 enrolled in the
famous Berklee College of Music in Boston (the same year I enrolled
in the rather less famous Access To Music in Leicester...) but left
after two semesters to form a duo with a friend, Clay Cook. The two
would find some success locally around Boston but eventually split
citing musical differences (I win! I FINISHED my course!)
The
next stage in his career was to record the EP “Inside Wants Out”
whilst living in Georgia, produced by Glenn Matullo and with the help
of David LaBruyere, featuring several songs co-written with Cook, and
released on his own label Mayer Music. Reception was warm and Mayer
and LaBruyere used this momentum to begin touring through Georgia and
surrounding states. The follow up, 2001's “Room For Squares” we
now consider the breakthrough record, with several hit singles
including “Why Georgia” And “Your Body Is A Wonderland”. This
was followed by a tour with Counting Crows, and followed by 2003's
“Heavier Things” and 2006's “Continuum” establishing him
firmly as a pop-star singer songwriter... who also just happens to be
a proper, bad-ass guitar player on the side!
So
let's take a look at a few licks.
This first is from “Belief” on the “Continuum” album, and is just a flat out Clapton/ SRV/ Hendrix style D minor pentatonic run (proper guitar playing), but notice the finger roll and quirky 4th interval jump between the D and the A, and the slightly unusual repeated finger slides between the A and the G. There's a neat little twist at the end when instead of finishing with the root D, Mayer pulls off to the C (b7th), lending the line a moodier, bluesier feel.
Speaking of bluesy feel, this second example is taken from Mayer's epic solo on “Covered In Rain” from the album “Any Given Thursday” using Bb minor pentatonic – interestingly in a Bb major context - and students of mine will recognise the Magic 3 Notes principle underpinning this one, but developed many steps beyond the basics! Mayer also colours the pentatonic with the 2nd (C) as well as the 6th (G), blending major and minor pentatonics in a similar manner to Clapton and his hero SRV.
A similar approach is at work in the third example, taken from “Slow Dancing In A Burning Room”, again from “Continuum”, this time sing C# minor pentatonic. Note the use of quarter tone as well as full tone bends, and the stinging vibrato. The phrases ending on the G#, E and C# also spell out a C# minor arpeggio – a neat coincidence, and the kind of thing that a player of Mayer's calibre will gravitate towards unconsciously.
Our final example comes from the clearly Mark Knopfler- inspired solo from "Wild Blue" using A minor pentatonic. Note the assertive way it starts off – bending the 7th fret G and alternating between the G on the 8th fret B string (b7) and A on the 5th fret E string (root), the kind of idea that a player like Albert King would have milked. Again, you can just about see the Magic 3 Notes at the core of this lick with several layers of development laid on top of them – proving once again that it's not what you use, it's how you use it!
And
with that, we'll wrap things up – I've enjoyed this far more than I
thought I would and it's great to see someone almost smuggling
classic blues/rock guitar playing into the pop mainstream, so good on
John Mayer for that! Check back next month as we drink deep from the
well of Rock & Roll as we tackle... Angus Young!
