Five of John Mayer’s favourite guitarists
John Mayer has always been a disciple of the guitar. Although he might be known to have inspired many a joker with an acoustic guitar who has wrecked open-mic nights, Mayer has never forgotten where he came from and has always used his guitar as a second voice in most of his songs. Then again, it takes more than heart to make his songs cry.
When combing through his back catalogue, Mayer mentions being a student of those who came before him and counts some rock royalty among his all-time favourite acts. While not all of these players have the flashiest styles by any stretch, their lyrical approach to the guitar has left its mark on what Mayer does, from his unique phrasing to how he weaves in between notes to get just the right touch on his electric guitar.
Sometimes his favourite guitarists come down more to aesthetic than their actual tone, with Mayer adopting some of their approaches to songwriting. As Mayer has ascended to rock god himself, some of his heroes are also returning the favour, talking about how great he is in interviews and trying to figure out where he gets some of his magic.
For all of the great licks that Mayer has made over the course of his career, none of it happened overnight. Playing with that much soul comes from years of practice, and Mayer has every one of these guitarists to thank for bringing him to where he is today.
Five of John Mayer’s favourite guitarists
B.B. King
For all fans of blues guitar, the essence of the instrument all comes down to B.B. King. Although King never claimed to be the flashiest guitar player, his restraint when performing gave meaning to the phrase less-is-more on tracks like ‘The Thrill Is Gone’. His licks have always been approachable for guitar players, and Mayer was paying close attention.
When first coming up, Mayer talked about the cockiness that guitar players playing over King’s tracks, recalling (via TikTok), “imagine the built-in cockiness of playing over B.B. King and pretending B.B. King and pretending B.B. King is not there”. Whereas other guitarists chased the speed of their licks, Mayer took the power of King’s work and channelled it into songs such as ‘Gravity’, which say a lot with only a handful of notes.
Mayer also sent a moving eulogy when hearing of King’s passing, describing his death as a “monumental loss”. Unlike some of the cocky guitar players that he described at the time, Mayer would go on to prove his worth by sitting in with B.B. King and trading licks with one of the masters of the blues.
Jerry Garcia
Mayer never wanted to be a one-trick pony. After finding his calling in the blues, Mayer also attended Julliard and had a good foundation of music to work with throughout his career on albums like Continuum. That kind of eclectic framework is the perfect mindset to have when working with The Dead, which Mayer took on in 2015.
When talking about his approach to his favourite acts, Mayer is quick to say that there’s more to The Grateful Dead than just a jam band. As he inhabited Garcia’s licks, he remarked in Jerry Garcia: Secret Space of Dreams, “I had to become an even better [guitarist] to begin to understand the depth and complexity of Jerry Garcia’s playing. His performances serve as a detailed map of a man, his intentions, his desires, and his impressions of the world around him”.
Around the time that Mayer was taking a break from the pop spotlight, he ended up working with the survivors of Garcia’s legacy, resurrecting the band Dead and Co. and going out on the road playing Garcia’s licks. It might seem easy to just learn licks from rock royalty, but Mayer is more about inhabiting the role of Garcia than anything else.
Eric Clapton
After The Beatles took hold of rock and roll, Eric Clapton was quickly becoming the next guitar hero alongside them. Although George Harrison may have played his fair share of perfect licks, ‘Slowhand’ had a way of internalising the blues that few had before him, taking the genre into new places with Cream and his solo career. Mayer might have gotten to Clapton later, but he always kneeled at the alter of England’s guitar god.
When talking about songs that he wished he could have played on, Mayer singled out Clapton’s return to form on Journeyman in the early ‘90s, mentioning (via Guitar.com), “I always wished that I could have a song that was on [that]. I loved him so much that I’m not afraid to go, ‘I just want to feel what that’s like’.”
Since his salad days playing ‘Your Body is a Wonderland’, Mayer has gotten to the point where he’s received nods from Clapton himself, with ‘Slowhand’ mentioning in an interview that he counts Mayer among his favourite guitarists. Mayer might have his niche genre cut out for him at this point, but any real guitarist recognises when there’s another legend among them.
Stevie Ray Vaughan
The blues has always been a primary component in rock and roll. Even if Mayer strays away from the lowdown and dirty sounds of Muddy Waters on his pop-tinged records, every guitarist has that same starting point when they are first picking up the instrument. The blues will never die as long as there’s hurt in the world, and Stevie Ray Vaughan tapped into what Mayer was feeling in his heart.
When inducting Vaughan and his band Double Trouble into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Mayer told the story of listening to their debut Texas Flood for the first time, saying, “the second I heard it, I knew it was going to mean everything to me. There’s an intensity to Stevie’s guitar playing that only he can achieve still to this day”.
From the ferocious bends that he would pull off in ‘Pride and Joy’ to the gentle touch of a song like ‘Texas Flood’, Vaughan’s versatility was what struck a nerve with Mayer, trying to make the guitar into an emotional tool to make the song a gradual emotional experience instead of just a couple of notes. Mayer might fall into his own niche in rock just like Vaughan, but where most people see musical borders, Mayer sees musical tools to work with.
Jimi Hendrix
It’s impossible to nail down the same starting point for most guitar players. Going through history, people have flocked to certain journeymen to teach them the ways of the six-string, from Chuck Berry in the ‘50s to Eddie Van Halen lighting everything on fire in the ‘80s. Mayer is no different than any other guitar player though, and every great guitar player always did their homework when coming back to Jimi Hendrix.
When Rolling Stone assembled a list of the greatest artists of all time, Mayer was highly reverent towards what Hendrix brought to the table, going on to say, “He had a secret relationship with the guitar, and though it was incredibly technical and based in theory, it was his theory. All you heard was colour. The math is what’s been applied ever since”.
Mayer would later recall the sensitive side of Hendrix being the most influential on his playing, such as the open yearning in a song like ‘The Wind Cries Mary’ or the intricate guitar figures that went into making masterpieces like ‘Little Wing’ and ‘Bold as Love’, the latter of which Mayer would cover on his album Continuum. John Mayer might be focused on the intricacies of guitar just like everybody else, but when it comes to serving the song, Mayer is trying to make the guitar speak just like Hendrix did.
