John Mayer - Gravity

Biography

John Clayton Mayer, born October 16, 1977, is a singer-songwriter and guitarist whose work has spanned many genres over the course of his career. Raised in Fairfield, Connecticut, he attended the prestigious Berklee College of Music, hoping to refine his guitar skills. He dropped out after one year to pursue his career.

After striking a deal with Aware/Columbia Records, he released his debut album, Room for Squares in 2001. The single “Your Body Is a Wonderland” launched him to fame, winning him a Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance in 2003. That same year, he released his second album Heavier Things, spawning the single “Daughters”, which won Song of the Year in 2005.

After performing soft rock/pop in his early career, he began moving towards the blues genre that had initially influenced him as a musician, collaborating with B.B. King and Eric Clapton among others. In 2005, he formed the blues group John Mayer Trio, releasing Try! that same year. Mayer’s 2006 album Continuum continued his foray into the blues genre and won him Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Album in 2007, producing the hit singles “Waiting on the World to Change” and “Gravity”.

His 2009 album Battle Studies saw a return to pop rock and a number-one grossing world tour. Mayer withdrew from public life in 2010 after controversial interviews with Playboy and Rolling Stone and began work on his fifth studio album Born and Raised, released in 2012. The album is a shift in sound for Mayer, incorporating folk and country rock. A granuloma on his vocal chords delayed the release of the album and cancelled the subsequent tour.

In 2013, John released Paradise Valley and during a concert in Adelaide, he covered the Beyoncé song “XO” and one month later, he released a studio version of the song. In August 2015, Mayer and the Grateful Dead formed the group Dead & Company, along with Jeff Chimenti and Oteil Burbridge and they began a tour in the US that continued in 2016. In November of the same year, John released the lead single “Love on the Weekend” of his seventh studio album The Search For Everything, out in 2017.