john mayer

Seven-time Grammy award winning singer/songwriter John Mayer has carved a niche for himself crafting earnest ballads in both the rock and pop genres. Mayer grew up in Connecticut but began his music career while living in Georgia and often references blues artists like B.B. King and Eric Clapton as influences on his evolving sound.

Mayer's second album, 2002's Room For Squares, helped establish him as a popular performer with several tracks becoming major radio hits: "Your Body Is A Wonderland," "Why Georgia Why," and the geek-anthem "No Such Thing." Mayer won a Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal from that album and went on to win again in the same category for "Daughters" in 2004 from the Heavier Things album.

Mayer — seemingly having mastered the world of music, including a cover shot for Rolling Stone's The Top 20 New Guitar Gods — has branched out into all realms of media. In 2004 he began writing a regular column for Esquire magazine titled "Music Lessons With John Mayer," where he fused his penchant for clever witicisms with pop culture observations.

Mayer was one of the first celebrities to maintain a regularly updated blog, ahead of the current trend of celeb blogging. Mayer, having embraced this new media, has been a tabloid staple ever since. This transition from serious musician to tabloid fodder was helped in part by his habit of dating high-profile celebrity women (Jessica Simpson, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Jennifer Aniston to name a few) and then writing about it.

Mayer is also a prolific Twitterer and seems to enjoy making regular off-the-cuff updates, often landing himself in hot water.