That bluesy groove fits John Mayer just fine

John Mayer is new and improved. Now standing at the center of his John Mayer Trio, the singer-songwriter is no longer a smooth-talking soft-rock troubadour with an acoustic guitar. He’s turned hard to the blues and added some real muscle and inspiration to his jazzy grooves.

At the House of Blues on Thursday, Mayer kept his hands mostly on a crackling electric guitar, finding his comfort zone somewhere between Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan but also exploring the emotional single-note lead style of B.B. King, moaning into a microphone: “I’m putting you out baby / I’m putting you outta my mi-i-i-i-nd!”

Mayer has always had some impressive technique in his playing, despite his reputation for heartthrob pop. So while some of the new songs were sparse and could wander a bit in search of structure and direction, he kept reaching for greater heights on guitar.

He didn’t always get there, but the successes were surprising and memorable, finding some genuine feeling mostly lost on that wave of hyped teen guitar phenoms of the ‘90s.

Dressed only in a plain white T-shirt and faded jeans, Mayer was here to play, not romance. He was helped by the emphatic beats of drummer Steve Jordan and bassist Pino Palladino, even transforming Mayer’s understated “Daughters” hit into something bluesy and fresh, finding a sharper, harder edge to his usual vocal purr.

A funked-up take on Ray Charles’ “I Got a Woman” couldn’t match the original but was an impressive sign of where Mayer is headed. He’s already seen the mountaintop of pop stardom and found himself bored. Now he’s ready to get down in the groove.