Once Again

Once Again, John Legend's new album, is many things, chief among them, it's a pop/soul album fueled by intelligence, intuition, sensuality, spirit and a creativity made possible by guests which include Raphael Saadiq, Kanye West, Craig Street and will.i.am, who brought the lead single, Save Room, to John. Breezy and sexy, Save Room is a joyful, cool love song, inspired by an old AM radio single, Stormy, by the Classics IV (a 60's Top 40 band best-known for Spooky ). As John recalls, will brought the sample. I didn't even know the original. I just knew it was a nice organ sound and wanted to write to it. I just started mumbling along to it, finding my place in the melody and it worked for me.

Continuum

With any trilogy, says John Mayer, the third in the series blows it open. On Continuum the singer/songwriter/guitar slinger meets that challenge head-on. Mayer's third studio album marks his first turn as producer. It is his most soulful, cohesive collection yet and he says it's no accident that this project is where all of his efforts, his potential, and his disparate influences fully come together. He has collaborated with icons and contemporaries alike - Eric Clapton, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, and Herbie Hancock, as well as Kanye West and Alicia Keys. In doing so, Mayer says his own interests have grown and his perspectives expanded. Mayer also credits his collaboration with Steve Jordan and Pino Palladino (collectively known as the John Mayer Trio) with helping to recalibrate his musical priorities. If it wasn't for the Trio, Continuum would have been less accessible. It let me settle up with my needs as a musician, and get to a point somewhere between the Trio record and Room For Squares - and that's a really good place to be. Ultimately, Continuum represents maturity, both musically and thematically, for John Mayer a concept that he wasn't comfortable with until now. A lot of these songs are about coming to terms with getting older, he says.