John Mayer - Inside Wants Out

After John Mayer hooked up with producer John Alagia, who had previously worked with Dave Matthews, for his second album, Room For Squares, a lot of people heard him as a second Matthews. But a listen to Mayer's first album, Inside Wants Out, half of which turned up in re-recorded form on Room For Squares, is liable to remind the listener more of an earlier antecedent, 1970s folk-jazz performer Michael Franks of "Popsicle Toes" fame. Like Franks, Mayer here has a wheezy, phlegmatic tenor and, though he plays an acoustic guitar that is the focus of the arrangements even when a few other instruments are brought in, he does not restrict himself to folk chords, instead throwing in jazzy elements. Read More...