John Mayer can be seen as more than just a modern-day guitar hero. In recent months, he’s showcased his skills as a de facto pedal reviewer, and now he can also add guitar teacher to that list, having come to the aid of Doug Pettibone when he needed to up his game on the pedal steel.
The chameleon-like session player, who got the Lucinda Williams gig after lending his musicianship to Tracy Chapman’s live band, has also recorded with Mark Knopfler, Marianne Faithfull, and a rich array of different artists across genres.
By the time producer Don Was and pedal steel player Greg Leisz approached Pettibone with a view of hiring him for John Mayer’s Born and Raised tour in 2012, he was well versed in the country-coded instrument. But there were still gaps in his skill set.
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“I could learn stuff off the record and could do more atmospheric playing, but I’d never really soloed too much,” he says in conversation with Guitar World. “I’m not really a traditional country player, and I’m not virtuosic by any means on pedal steel.
“But I can fake it,” he admits. “And at the time, we were rehearsing, and Chuck Leavell, the keyboard player, was taking solos, along with everyone else in the band. He goes, ‘Hey, Doug, why don’t you sit down at that steel, and let’s see what you got?’”
Pettibone’s reaction was, “Oh, shit.” Not wanting to surrender, he muddled his way through a jam, but accepted his talents were “limited” in their scope. Cue Mayer, the teacher.
“He said, ‘I guess the only way you can get better is by playing more…’ After that, instead of firing me and getting somebody who could really play, he would throw me solos every night on the steel.”
It’s an admirable turn from Mayer, choosing to nurture Pettibone rather than cast him aside in favor of a quick fix.
“That was when he had his sights set on that Grateful Dead thing [Dead & Company],” Pettibone adds. “We’d get messages every night, you know, emails, saying, ‘Okay, let’s work on this song tomorrow at soundcheck.’”
Mayer recently discussed the insecurities he faced in his early days in Dead & Company as he learned to share stages with his hero, Bob Weir. But his getting his dream gig was perhaps fate. Like he showed patience and care with Pettibone, Weir, in turn, “took a chance” on the guitarist, and together they formed a dazzling, cross-generational partnership.
Guitar World’s full interview with Pettibone will be published in the coming weeks.
