Shrink-wrapped Twenty-five year old Jason Mraz made his first forays into the music scene at a young age, making the pilgrimage from Mechanicsville, Virginia to New York City at eighteen to study performance and music theater. Soon, he was honing his singer-songwriter skills busking on the streets of Manhattan. Eventually making his way to the west coast, Mraz now embraces what he calls a life of sleep, peace and poetry -- and hundreds of shows that have smitten thousands of fans. His debut album, Waiting For My Rocket To Come, is packed with witty, wordy, smart, funky and astonishingly catchy pop songs that do right by the best singer-songwriter traditions of Elektra. The album was produced by John Alagia, who has worked with the Dave Matthews Band and John Mayer, among others. Virginia exile Jason Mraz grew up listening to Dave Matthews and Agents of Good Roots, local heroes whose frat-friendly influences are much in evidence on his major-label debut. Producer John Alagia (Dave Matthews Band, John Mayer) augments Mraz's SoCal cohorts with Agents' rhythm section, dramatically expanding and polishing songs like "Curbside Prophet" and "You and I Both," which previously appeared in looser, less developed versions on Mraz's self-released live recordings. But fans from the singer-songwriter's coffeehouse years need not despair. Mraz's witty lyrics and easygoing folk-blues stylings (think Jack Johnson on Prozac) are still very much in evidence. He's also in fine voice and, on two standout tracks--"Who Needs Shelter" and "Absolutely Zero"--rivals Neil Finn in his ability to invoke the spirit of Paul McCartney. Waiting for My Rocket to Come showcases an artist who, while still finding his own direction, is clearly off to a great start. --Bill Forman
