Early career (1996–1999) Mayer considered skipping college to pursue music, but his parents dissuaded him. At the urging of his college friend
Clay Cook, they left Berklee after two semesters and moved to Atlanta; there, they formed a two-man band called LoFi Masters, and began performing in local coffee houses and club venues such as
Eddie's Attic. The two parted ways and Mayer embarked on a solo career. Cook had co-written many of the album's songs, including its first commercial single release, "
No Such Thing"; however, his only performance contribution was backing vocals on the song "Comfortable". Also, as his career coincided with the then-nascent internet music market, Mayer benefited from an online following. Mayer came to the attention of
Gregg Latterman at Aware Records through an acquaintance of Mayer's, a lawyer, who sent Aware his EP. In early 2001, after including him in Aware Festival concerts and his songs on Aware compilations, Aware released Mayer's internet-only album,
Room for Squares. During this time, Aware concluded a deal with
Columbia Records that gave Columbia first pick in signing Aware artists. In September, Columbia remixed and re-released
Room for Squares. As part of the major label "debut", the album's artwork was updated, and the track "3x5" was added. The re-release included reworked studio versions of the first four songs from
Inside Wants Out. By the end of 2002,
Room for Squares had spawned several radio hits, including "
No Such Thing", "
Your Body Is a Wonderland", and "
Why Georgia". It also received general praise critically, and Mayer drew comparisons to
Dave Matthews. In his acceptance speech he remarked, "This is very, very fast, and I promise to catch up." In February 2003, Mayer released a live CD and DVD of a concert in
Birmingham, Alabama titled
Any Given Thursday, which included songs previously not recorded, such as "Man on the Side", "
Something's Missing", and "Covered in Rain". Commercially, the album peaked at number 17 on the
Billboard 200 chart. Its accompanying DVD release received conservative—although consistent—praise, with critics torn between his pop-idol image, and (at the time) emerging guitar prowess. Erik Crawford of
AllMusic asked, "Is [Mayer] the consummate guitar hero exemplified when he plays a cover of Stevie Ray Vaughan's '
Lenny', or is he the teen idol that the pubescent girls shriek for after he plays 'Your Body Is a Wonderland'?" That summer, Mayer went on the road with
Counting Crows in a tour that spanned 42 dates between July 7 and September 2.
Heavier Things, Mayer's second album, was released in 2003 to generally favorable reviews.
Rolling Stone, Allmusic, and
Blender all gave positive, although reserved, feedback. The album was commercially successful, and while it did not sell as well as
Room for Squares, it peaked at number one on the US
Billboard 200 chart. The song "
Daughters" won the 2005 Grammy for
Song of the Year, and No. 19 on the
Billboard Hot 100. He dedicated the award to his grandmother, Annie Hoffman, who had died in May 2004. He also won Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. On February 9, 2009, Mayer told
Ellen DeGeneres that he thought he should not have won the Grammy for Song of the year because he thought that Alicia Keys' "
If I Ain't Got You" was the better song. Because of this, he removed the top half of the Grammy and gave it to Keys, and kept the bottom part for himself. At the 37th Annual
Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in 2006, Mayer received the
Hal David Starlight Award. Mayer again recorded live concerts across seven nights of his U.S. tour in 2004. These recordings were released to the
iTunes Store under the title
As/Is, indicating that the errors were included along with the good moments. A few months later, a "best of" CD was compiled from the
As/Is nights. The album included a previously unreleased cover of
Marvin Gaye's song "
Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)", featuring a solo from Mayer's supporting act—jazz and blues turntablist
DJ Logic. The album covers of the
As/Is releases feature drawings of
anthropomorphic bunnies.
Change in musical direction (2005–2008) As early as 2002, Chris Willman with
Entertainment Weekly said that Mayer was "more historically savvy, and more ambitious than you'd guess from the unforced earnestness of
[Room for] Squares. However, Mayer was largely associated with the Adult Contemporary and singer-songwriter genres. He toured with jazz pianist
Herbie Hancock, including a show at the
Bonnaroo Music Festival. He also performed on commercial releases, namely, with
Eric Clapton (
Back Home,
Crossroads Guitar Festival),
Buddy Guy (''
Bring 'Em In)
, John Scofield (That's What I Say), and B.B. King (80''). Although Mayer maintained his reputation as a singer-songwriter, he gained distinction as a guitarist. Following the conclusion of his
Heavier Things tour, Mayer began working with artists, including those from other genres of music. His voice was sampled on the song "
Go" by rapper
Common, and he appeared on a hidden track called "Bittersweet Poetry" from the
Kanye West album
Graduation. The collaborations drew praise from rap heavyweights
Jay-Z and
Nelly. When asked about his presence in the
hip hop community, Mayer said, "It's not music out there right now. That's why, to me, hip-hop is where rock used to be." Around this time Mayer announced that he was "closing up shop on acoustic sensitivity". and that November released a live album called
Try! The band took a break in mid-2006. Mayer's third studio album,
Continuum, was released on September 12, 2006, produced by Mayer and
Steve Jordan. Mayer suggested the album was intended to combine blues and pop. In that vein, two of the tracks from his Trio release
Try!—"Vultures" and "Gravity"—were included on
Continuum. and as a result of that, Columbia got Mayer to make "Waiting on the World to Change". John Mayer admitted on the
Bobby Bones Show that it's the song he dislikes performing live the most. In May 2006, Mayer contributed a cover of the song "
Route 66" for the
Pixar animated film
Cars (2006). Mayer's rendition garnered a nomination at the
49th Grammy Awards for
Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance. The first single from
Continuum was "
Waiting on the World to Change", which debuted on
The Ron and Fez Show. On August 23, 2006, Mayer debuted the entire album on the Los Angeles radio station
Star 98.7, offering commentary on each track. A subsequent version was released the next day on the
Clear Channel Music website as a streaming sneak preview. On September 21, 2006, Mayer appeared on
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation in the episode "Built to Kill, Part 1", playing "Waiting on the World to Change" and "Slow Dancing in a Burning Room". The song "Gravity" was featured on the television series
House, in the episode "Cane & Able" and
Numb3rs. On December 7, 2006, Mayer was nominated for five Grammy Awards, including
Album of the Year. The Trio received a nomination for
Try!. He won two: Best Pop Song with Vocal for "Waiting on the World to Change" and
Best Pop Album for
Continuum. The initial North American
Continuum tour ended on February 28, 2007, with a show at
Madison Square Garden. On November 20, 2007, the re-issue of
Continuum became available online and in stores. The release contained a bonus disc of six live songs from his 2007 tour: five from
Continuum and a cover of the
Ray Charles song "
I Don't Need No Doctor". On December 6, 2007, "Belief" was nominated for Best Male Pop Vocal for the
50th Annual Grammy Awards. He accompanied
Alicia Keys on guitar on her song "
No One" at the ceremony. Additionally, he was selected by the editors of
Time magazine as one of the
100 Most Influential People of 2007, listed among artists and entertainers. In February 2008, Mayer hosted a three-day Caribbean cruise event that included performances with various musicians including
David Ryan Harris,
Brett Dennen,
Colbie Caillat, and
Dave Barnes, among others. The event was called "The Mayercraft Carrier" and was held aboard the cruise ship known as the
Carnival Victory. A follow-up cruise titled "Mayercraft Carrier 2" sailed from Los Angeles March 27–31, 2009, on the
Carnival Splendor. On July 1, 2008, Mayer released
Where the Light Is, a live concert film of Mayer's performance at the Nokia Theatre
L.A. Live on December 8, 2007. The film was directed by
Danny Clinch. It features Mayer opening with an acoustic set, followed by a blues set with the Trio and concluded by a full set with the band from the
Continuum album.
Battle Studies (2009) Australian artist
Guy Sebastian invited Mayer to collaborate on three songs from his 2009 album
Like It Like That. Mayer also played guitar on the title track of
Crosby Loggins' debut LP,
Time to Move. On July 7, 2009, Mayer performed an instrumental guitar version of
Michael Jackson's "
Human Nature" at Jackson's televised
memorial service. He co-wrote "World of Chances" with
Demi Lovato for Lovato's second album
Here We Go Again, released later that month. After the overwhelming success of
Continuum, Mayer confessed to be intimidated with beginning on a follow-up. However, he stated, "I think it got a lot easier when I realized that no matter what I do, it's not going to be
Continuum, good or bad." The first single, "
Who Says", was released on September 24, 2009, in advance of the album, followed on October 19 by "
Heartbreak Warfare" and "
Half of My Heart" on June 21, 2010. The accompanying arena tour grossed 45 million. others called the album "safe" and noted that "Mayer the singer-songwriter and Mayer the man about town sometimes seem disconnected, like they don't even belong in the same body". Mayer admitted to
Rolling Stone that he thought
Battle Studies was not his best album.
Personal troubles and hiatus (2010–2013) Following two revealing and highly controversial magazine interviews in February 2010 with
Rolling Stone and
Playboy magazines, Mayer withdrew from public life and ceased giving interviews. While still on tour for
Battle Studies, he began work in earnest on his fifth studio album—which drew on the popular music of
Laurel Canyon in the early 1970s. Around this time, he began to experience vocal problems, and sought medical assistance. On September 16, 2011, he posted on his blog that his next record,
Born and Raised, would be delayed due to treatment he was receiving for a
granuloma discovered on his vocal cords. Mayer described the event as a "temporary setback" and added that the album was entirely finished except for a few vocal tracks. A month later, on October 20, 2011, Mayer posted, "I had surgery this afternoon to remove it and am now on complete vocal rest for a month or more," during which he planned to "travel the country, look, and listen". However, the surgery did not work as expected, and he had to undergo another one that August. During his travels, he visited and fell in love with
Bozeman, Montana, where he bought a house and re-settled in the spring of 2012. at the
Prudential Center, New Jersey, on December 13, 2012 With his treatments complete, Mayer finished the vocals on
Born and Raised, He described it as his "most honest" album, Even so,
Born and Raised was released as scheduled, and entered the
Billboard 200 chart at number one, selling 219,000 copies in its first week. and
People magazine called it "a shimmering album". Meanwhile, Mayer brought a new focus to his guitar playing and, fearing that his vocal cords had been permanently damaged, tried to come to terms with a possible future as a
session musician. unable to even talk, his performances were limited to accompanying other artists on guitar. He appeared in September 2012 on
Saturday Night Live, where he joined musical guest
Frank Ocean. He played with
the Rolling Stones in New Jersey in December 2012. In April 2013, he made an appearance at the
Crossroads Guitar Festival, and at the 28th Annual
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, where he inducted the late
Albert King. A show at the
Tuscaloosa Amphitheater in Alabama on April 25, 2013, followed by a set at the
New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival the next day, marked his first full-length concerts since his health troubles.
Paradise Valley, Dead & Company, The Search for Everything (2013–2018) in
Brooklyn, New York, on December 17, 2013 In June 2013, Mayer announced that he was finishing work on his sixth album,
Paradise Valley. Produced by
Don Was, the album features "low-key folk-rock tunes". He collaborated with
Frank Ocean on the song "Wildfire Pt. 2", and with
Katy Perry on "
Who You Love". The latter song would go on to become the album's third single, and an accompanying music video was released on December 17. On June 18, 2013, he released a lyric video for the album's first single, "Paper Doll", on his official YouTube page. The album was released August 20, 2013, and—meeting with positive reviews—debuted at number two on the
Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 145,560 copies in the United States. Mayer embarked on a tour, his first in three years, in support of
Born and Raised and
Paradise Valley. The American leg of the tour ran from July to December 2013 with
Interscope recording artist
Phillip Phillips serving as the supporting act. The tour visited Australia in April 2014. During a concert in
Adelaide, Mayer covered the Beyoncé song "
XO" . One month later, on May 22, he released a studio version of the song on his
SoundCloud account. It was made available for digital download by Columbia Records on May 27, 2014, through the iTunes Store. For the week ending June 1, 2014, Mayer's version debuted at number 90 on the US
Billboard Hot 100 chart and number 13 on the US
Hot Rock Songs chart. On the Canadian Hot 100, "XO" peaked at a position of 76. The single also peaked at number 81 on the Australian Singles Chart (its debut week), and at number 95 on the
Dutch Singles Chart. In the UK, it peaked at 115 on the UK singles chart. Mayer recorded the song "
Come Rain or Come Shine" as a duet with
Barbra Streisand for her album
Partners, released in September 2014. In February 2015, Mayer performed alongside
Ed Sheeran at the
Grammy Awards. As of March, Mayer said he was taking break from working on a "deeply personal new album". Mayer also recounted that in 2011 he happened upon a song by the
Grateful Dead while listening to
Pandora, and that soon the band's music was all he would listen to. In February 2015, while guest hosting
The Late Late Show, Mayer invited Grateful Dead guitar player
Bob Weir to join him in a studio performance. While Weir,
Phil Lesh,
Mickey Hart and
Bill Kreutzmann (surviving members of the Grateful Dead) were preparing for their
Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of the Grateful Dead tour with
Trey Anastasio, Mayer began practicing the band's catalog of songs. That August, Mayer, Weir, Kreutzmann, and Hart formed the group
Dead & Company, along with
Jeff Chimenti and
Oteil Burbridge, and began a fall tour in the United States. The tour was well received (
Billboard called it "magical"), As a result of his touring with Dead & Company, Mayer postponed working on his next studio album until January 2016, with plans to finish it by the end of the year. On November 17, 2016, Mayer released "
Love on the Weekend" as the lead single from his EP
The Search for Everything: Wave One, which was then released on January 20, 2017. A second EP,
The Search for Everything: Wave Two, was released on February 24, 2017, along with the single "Still Feel Like Your Man". The album
The Search for Everything was released on April 14, 2017, and was promoted by a third single titled "In the Blood", released on May 1, 2017, and by
The Search for Everything World Tour from March to October of the same year. Mayer also continued touring with Dead & Company during the
summer and
fall of 2017. On December 5, during the Fall Tour, his appendix burst, resulting in an emergency
appendectomy and the postponement of the remaining tour dates to February 2018. In January 2018, Dead & Company announced their
Dead & Company Summer Tour 2018.
Sob Rock (2018–present) On May 10, 2018, Mayer released the single "
New Light", co-produced by
No I.D. and Mayer himself. In an interview with
Zane Lowe for
Apple Music on the release day, he announced "more new music" for 2018. During his performance at the iHeartRadio Theater on October 24, 2018, he premiered a song titled "I Guess I Just Feel Like". On December 12, 2018, he announced a world tour for 2019. Mayer released two singles in 2019; the previously played "I Guess I Just Feel Like" on February 22, and "Carry Me Away" on September 6. During an episode of John Mayer's show "Current Mood" on March 15, 2020, he revealed that he was in the process of writing and recording songs for a new album. In early 2021, he stated that the album was completely finished as he began posting snippets of new songs on
TikTok ahead of release. In an interview with
Kerwin Frost, Mayer hinted at an April release for the album. Later, the date was pushed back. On June 1, 2021, Mayer officially announced his eighth album,
Sob Rock, and on June 4, released the lead single "
Last Train Home" along with an accompanying music video. The album was released on July 16, 2021, as well as a music video for the song, "Shot in the Dark". The track list included previously released singles "New Light", "I Guess I Just Feel Like" and "Carry Me Away". "Carry Me Away" was slightly reworked production-wise to fit the album's 1980s aesthetic. == Touring ==