Finding 'God's Grace' With Help From Jimmy Buffett

Pop guitarist and vocalist Peter Mayer was in India long before the Beatles made their famous trip there in 1968.

Of course, his situation was different. Mayer was a child, living in Tamilnadu because his parents were Lutheran missionaries.

Today, any self-respecting Parrothead, as devout Jimmy Buffett fans are known, can tell you that Mayer is the lead guitarist of Buffett's Coral Reefer Band. He's been playing and touring with Buffett for 17 years.

But memories of his childhood in India's far southern region, and his parents' work there, are two things that infuse Mayer's second career as an artist in his own right. He puts out CDs with a spiritual bent, and his latest is "Musicbox."

"Growing up in India stirred something in my soul that even now, in my 40s, makes me never want to be too far away from passing on the gifts I was given," Mayer says.

Mayer was born in India, one of eight children raised by Jim and Selma "Sammy" Mayer.

"By Indian standards, we were pretty wealthy," says Mayer, on a 14-city tour for the holiday season. "We were able to hire Indian helpers for around the house, so our life was comfortable.

"But it was poignant, because around us was such poverty. It was such a gorgeous country, with beautiful people, but we were face to face with the cold realities of people not having even the basic medical care they needed."

Mayer's parents found an old piano that Jim would play. There were always classical records on the turntable, and lots of music at church, some of it infused with the Indian tradition of flutes and drums, shakers and bells.

When Mayer was 8 in 1965, his family moved back to its hometown of St. Louis. The 1960s music scene was in full bloom. "The Beatles, Woodstock, Jimi Hendrix -- it was just an incredible time to grow up," Mayer says.

He began buying albums and learned to play the clarinet; his parents bought him a $50 Suzuki guitar, and he taught himself to play. The first song he learned was Paul McCartney's "Blackbird."

Mayer's younger brother Jim played bass. Soon, both were forming pop groups and playing throughout their years at Lutheran High School South in St. Louis.

Eventually, Peter joined with Jim and a drummer named Roger Guth and headed to Los Angeles. They signed with Warner Bros. Records in 1987. The name of their group was PM, and their first album was produced by Elliot Scheiner, who had worked with Aretha Franklin and Steely Dan. PM's first single, "Piece of Paradise," got up to No. 8 on the Billboard charts.

They began opening for acts such as Chicago and the Moody Blues. "We had a great time for six months, a year, but when it came time for a second single, we tanked," he says. "Then we heard from Elliott that Jimmy Buffett was looking for a band."

Mayer, familiar with "Margaritaville" and "Cheeseburger in Paradise," was not initially smitten. "But then we thought, what the heck, it's going to be fun," he says. "We headed to Key West (Fla.) and then on to summer tours."

Some misgivings remained. "I was looking at it as a temporary thing," Mayer says. "I was trying to leave, yet every year, the tour would roll around again."

In 1995, Mayer had a change of heart. "Something hit me," he says. "I realized, we play in front of a million people each summer, we write and perform, and I decided to embrace it.

"I discovered that sometimes the things you think are stumbling blocks are steppingstones."

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