December 14, 2005

By a href="mailto:tchristensen@dallasnews.com">THOR CHRISTENSEN / The Dallas Morning News

You know the old saying about being too young to play the blues? Turns out to be true – at least in the case of John Mayer.

Having made his name as a heartthrob pop star, the 28-year-old singer-guitarist now wants his props as a musician: First, he showed off his chops by going note-for-note with B.B. King and Eric Clapton at 2004's Crossroads Guitar Festival. And now comes his serious blues-rock album, Try! John Mayer Trio Live in Concert, recorded with ace players-for-hire Steve Jordan (drums) and Pino Palladino (drums).

On a purely technical level, Try! succeeds. Mr. Mayer is skilled enough to keep up with his older bandmates as they gel into a raucous power trio on Ray Charles' "I Got a Woman" and several new tunes.

Yet the CD suffers from the same problem Mr. Mayer ran into at Crossroads. He simply doesn't have his own style.

Granted, he's a first-class guitar mimic – slipping into a voodoo chile swagger during Jimi Hendrix's "Wait Until Tomorrow" and imitating Jeff Beck, B.B. King and Stevie Ray Vaughan in other spots. He does a mean vocal impersonation of Stevie, too.

But there's no reason to buy Try! when you can listen instead to Mr. Vaughan's Live Alive or B.B. King's Live at the Regal. At his age, Mr. Mayer still has time to figure out his own style; if he doesn't get one quick, he could turn into the Gen Y Robin Trower.

Aerosmith, on the other hand, has been playing the blues since before Mr. Mayer was born, and it shows. Rockin' the Joint is its sixth live album, and it's more potent and focused than its first, 1978's Live Bootleg.

Partly, that's sobriety at work. But it's also experience talking. As Joe Perry snarls and improvises through "Draw the Line," Aerosmith reminds us how good it is at dancing on the edge without falling off.

Recorded in early 2002 at the Joint in Las Vegas (hence the title), the CD features a pair of so-so tunes from its then-new Just Push Play album, as well as a version of Diane Warren's icky power ballad "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing." But when Steven Tyler asks fans, "You like the old [expletive] or the new [expletive]?" the crowd votes for the former and the band obliges with hellfire versions of "Train Kept a Rollin'," "No More No More" and Fleetwood Mac's 1969 gem "Rattlesnake Shake."

The new stuff might keep Aerosmith on the radio, but it's the old songs that keep the band breathing fire.