• (VIDEO) JOHN MAYER ON WORKING WITH HERBIE HANCOCK

Bonnaroo 2005 continued the successful spirit set by the three previous years by featuring several great collaborations including Warren Haynes and Dave Matthews Band, Herbie Hancock with Widespread Panic, Bob Weir with Widespread Panic, Robert Randolph and Dave Matthews, Trey Anastasio and Matisyahu, Bo Bice with Trey, Warren Haynes with Widespread Panic, Colonel Bruce Hampton, Robert Randolph and Luther and Cody Dickinson with Widespread Panic, Les Claypool and Gabby Lala and John Mayer with Herbie Hancock, among many others. The 'jam band' festival took place June 10th-12th and also featured appearances by the Allman Brothers Band, the Mars Volta, the Black Crowes, and Joss Stone among others. Mayer spoke backstage about how he hooked up with Herbie Hancock and joined Roy Hargrove and Marcus Miller for a Headhunters 2005 tour and his appearance on Herbie's new album, Possibilities, due out this summer.

"I said 'yes,' sight unseen or song unheard, 'yes,' and somewhere in between saying yes and getting to the studio I thought to myself, 'Does he think I can play jazz? Because I'm not really a very good jazz player, but then as I started to get into the studio and realized, 'no, no, no, he's actually calling on something that I do to bring to what he does, and that's when I got a lot more confidence. And then we did a track for the record which I just adored writing it and us coming up with it in the studio...and that's when he asked would I be in the Headhunters. I just... I mean that's a seminal band -- especially if you're going to Berklee College Of Music. That's like required reading. That's the book you get in the stack of books when you first register, you know. I said 'yes' to it immediately."

Hancock will be releasing 'Possibilities' August 30th on Vector Recordings. The album's list of guest contributors, which already counts Mayer, Sting, Annie Lennox, Carlos Santana, Damien Rice and Trey Anastasio, has grown to include Paul Simon and Angelique Kidjo. Among the confirmed tracks is a Sting/Hancock interpretation of the former's "Sister Moon," from the 1987 album "Nothing Like the Sun." While Bonnaroo has grown to over 80,000 people, there was only one casualty to report -- with the cause still unknown at press time. The Bonnaroo festival continues to be one of the premier music festivals in the country, and has been taking place in Manchester, Tennessee since 2002 and each year brings in millions of dollars in revenue to Coffee County Tennessee.


Copyright 2005 Artisan News Service

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