[Slowhand] John Mayer

[David Fynan]

I'm not sure what to make of John Mayer.  He has good chops,  
especially for a "pop" musician nowadays, but to my ears is yet  
another Stevie Ray Vaughan and Hendrix clone, with sometimes some  
Clapton thrown in.  I think there are enough SRV copy cats out  
there.  It just doesn't interest me.  At times I hear some original  
playing from him which is not bad, but most times it's nothing new.   
As far as his voice is concerned he always reminded me more of a  
wannabe Dave Matthews than Stevie Nicks.  Basically, I don't think  
John is doing anything new or very interesting in either his playing  
or singing.

I appreciate the fact that he loves the blues and wants to get more  
young people interested in it, but other than that one blues album  
(again mostly a SRV thing) he hasn't done much of that.  I'm not sure  
how many people he's turned onto the blues with his playing.  He's  
now back to making pop music.

At times John seems like a real likable, funny, humble guy.  At other  
times he seems to have a very inflated view of himself.  I don't  
really understand EC's fascination with him either other than he's  
probably the only young popular musician who knows how to play the  
guitar.