John Mayer

John Mayer, born in Bridgeport in 1977, did a stint at Berklee College of Music in Boston before bailing for Atlanta in 1997 with fellow guitarist Clay Cook. Their duo, Lo-Fi Masters, didn't last, so Mayer worked the local clubs alone, sharpening his chops and building a small following. Inside Wants Out, his debut EP, came out on Aware Records in 1999, with "No Such Thing" riding a breezy, strummy groove that sounds tailor-made for a dorm-room stereo.

Room for Squares followed in 2001, and its "Your Body Is a Wonderland" won him the Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. Heavier Things topped the Billboard 200 in 2003. Then he made a sharp turn back toward the blues and rock that had hooked him in the first place, forming the John Mayer Trio and making Continuum in 2006, which won Best Pop Vocal Album, while "Waiting on the World to Change" took Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.

After Battle Studies brought him back to pop, he stepped away from the public eye in 2010 and came back with Born and Raised in 2012, a record steeped in the '70s sound of Laurel Canyon, delayed by a granuloma on his vocal cords. Paradise Valley followed in 2013, and in 2015 he joined 3 former members of the Grateful Dead in Dead & Company.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.