From school cheerleader to a record-breaking summer song

Jason Mraz grew up in Mechanicsville, Virginia, living with his father, a postal worker, after his parents divorced when he was five. At Lee-Davis High School he joined the cheerleading squad, the chorus and the drama club, and he played Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Snoopy in Snoopy! The Musical. Theatre was the plan, and he spent roughly a year and a half at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York.

The songwriter came later. When his roommates played guitar, he sang. A friend eventually handed him a guitar that was about to be thrown away, and he taught himself to play and write. An early girlfriend urged him to put his thoughts on paper, which helped quiet what he called the voices in his head. Back in Richmond he took odd jobs, including working as an elementary-school janitor, and enrolled at Longwood University on a scholarship. Instead of attending classes he set off west on a road trip that ended in San Diego, where he stayed.

His debut album, Waiting for My Rocket to Come, appeared in 2002 and produced “The Remedy (I Won’t Worry)”, which reached number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100. Mr. A-Z climbed to number five in 2005. Then came We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things. in 2008, which reached number three and went four times Platinum. Its lead single, “I’m Yours”, hit the top ten and stayed on the Hot 100 for a then-record 76 weeks. The same album gave him Grammy-winning singles in “Make It Mine” and “Lucky”, the latter a duet with Colbie Caillat.

Success kept coming. Love Is a Four Letter Word reached number two in 2012 and delivered “I Won’t Give Up”, and Yes! and Know. both made the top ten. In 2020 he signed a three-album agreement with BMG. By 2014 he had sold more than seven million albums, and in 2023 he finished second on Dancing with the Stars, proof that the old drama-club kid still liked an audience.