Don Was has seen John Mayer’s command of the electric guitar up close. He was in the control room for 2012’s Born And Raised, its 2013 follow-up Paradise Valley, and spent much of 2020 holed up in the studio with Mayer as he made Sob Rock during the pandemic.
Few producers know Mayer’s playing better. So when Was likens Mayer to George Harrison, citing his gift for crafting sounds out of left field that elevate a song, he doesn’t do so lightly.
“His guitar tones are unparalleled,” says Was, speaking to Tom Butwin of the the Everything Mayer Podcast and YouTube show. “They’re not just evocative, cool sounds, but they’re thick, and they’re warm, and they jump out of speakers, and I’m not sure how he does it.”
How he does it is not just a question of gear. You can have the PRS Silver Sky signature guitar. You could get Mayer’s guitar plugin suite from Neural DSP, the Archetype: John Mayer X, which collects captures of not one but three of his most holy grail tube amps.
But Was argues it’s not the same thing. You need his brain and his hands, too.
“Yes, he’s got the best gear you can have, but I’ve played his guitars and I don’t sound like him,” he says.
Was believes casual listeners might miss some of the subtle guitar details in Mayer’s recordings, but these are exaclty the kinds of sounds that catch the ear of players.
“I think people might take that for granted, but that’s one of the first things I notice when I listened to those records after not hearing them for a while,” continues Was. “It’s like, ‘Holy cow, man!’”
This makes him think of Harrison. But he went further, and says – cautiously – that Mayer could be even better than the late Beatle when it comes to teasing out unique sounds from his instrument.
“George Harrison was good at stuff like that, getting distinctive sounds that you only hear once on a certain song but it makes the song heaven, and that’s a strength of John’s,” explains Was. “He has the same thing. You notice I was loath to say John’s better than George Harrison. I just thought that ain’t gonna sit well with people. But he might be better than George Harrison.”
Comparing guitar players is a dangerous game. There is no better, not really, and even if there is, then you can be guaranteed that no one will agree with you. When Was says that Mayer might be better than George Harrison, he places the emphasis on the might.
What Was is in no two minds about is Mayer’s talent for putting a composition together. That is what sets him apart from everyone else he has worked with, e.g. Bob Dylan, the B-52s, the Rolling Stones, and, yes, George Harrison, like in 1990 when Harrison came in to play a solo on Dylan’s Under The Red Sky.
“I’ve never seen anyone with that many ideas for arrangements. He’s never short of ideas,” says Was. “It’s always, you know, ‘We have to do something in this section here.’ He’ll find 10 different, really elegant ways of of making that section work.
“And my job is never to tell him what to play; it’s to help him sort through the wealth of information that he’s laid down, to choose the most effective. His arrangement skills are incredible.”
