50 facts about Jazon Mraz: won two Grammy Awards, and has also won two Teen Choice Awards

Mraz won a 2013 People's Choice Award for Favorite Male Artist. Read other 50 things about your favorite singer Jason Mraz.

1. Mraz was born and raised in Mechanicsville, Virginia.

2. He is of Czech descent through his grandfather, who moved to the United States from Austria-Hungary in 1915.

3. His surname is Czech for "frost".

4. His parents, Tom (Tomáš) Mraz and June, divorced when he was five years old, but he maintains that he had an idyllic childhood, saying, "My hometown of Mechanicsville was very American. There were white picket fences, a church on every street corner, low crime and virtually no drug use. It was a good place to grow up."

5. After graduating from Lee-Davis High School, where he was a member of the cheerleading squad, Mraz attended the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York for about a year and a half, before returning to Mechanicsville and taking on a series of odd jobs.

6. He then enrolled at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia, but instead of attending classes, headed west on a road trip that ultimately brought him to San Diego, where he decided to stay.

7. Jason Thomas Mraz is an American singer-songwriter who first came to prominence in the San Diego coffeehouse scene in 2000.

8. In 2002, he released his debut studio album, Waiting for My Rocket to Come, which contained the hit single "The Remedy (I Won't Worry)".

9. With the release of his second album, Mr. A-Z, in 2005, Mraz achieved major commercial success. The album peaked at number 5 on the Billboard 200 and sold over 100,000 copies in the US.

10. In 2008, Mraz released his third studio album, We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things. It debuted at number 3 on the Billboard 200 and was an international commercial success primarily due to the hit "I'm Yours". The song peaked at number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100, giving him his first top ten single, and spent a then-record 76 weeks on the Hot 100.

11. His fourth album, Love Is a Four Letter Word, peaked at number 2 on the Billboard 200, his highest-charting album to date.

12. Mraz has won two Grammy Awards and received two additional nominations, and has also won two Teen Choice Awards, a People's Choice Award and the Hal David Songwriters Hall of Fame Award.

13. He has earned Platinum and multi-Platinum certifications in over 20 countries, and has toured in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, the Middle East and parts of Africa.

14. As of July 2014, Mraz has sold over seven million albums, and over 11.5 millions digital singles.

15. His musical style, from rhythmic feeling to his use of nylon string guitars, has been heavily influenced by Brazilian music.

16. Soon after moving to San Diego in 1999, Mraz became a roadie for the band Elgin Park.

17. He met future band member Toca Rivera at the coffee house Java Joe's in the Ocean Beach neighborhood of San Diego, where he performed once a week for nearly three years, building a following in San Diego and online.

18. In 2001, Mraz released the live acoustic album Live at Java Joe's, performing with percussionist Rivera and bassist Ian Sheridan. The album featured Mraz's freelancing vocal style and several songs he would later re-release, including "1000 Things", "You and I Both" and "Halfway Home." The album was made available to download on iTunes on March 11, 2008, under the title Jason Mraz: Live & Acoustic 2001.

19. Mraz's fifth studio album, Yes!, was released on July 15, 2014. It is his first acoustic album, and was recorded with folk rock all-girl band Raining Jane. They had previously co-written "A Beautiful Mess" for Mraz's 2008 album We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things.

20. Aside from a cover of the Boyz II Men song "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday", every song on Yes! was written by Mraz and Raining Jane.

21. The lead single, "Love Someone", was released on May 19, 2014, with Mraz performing an acoustic version of the song for Time.

22. On June 20, 2014, he released We Can Take the Long Way, a music video trilogy for the first three songs on Yes! - "Love Someone", "Hello, You Beautiful Thing" and "Long Drive". It premiered on the USA Today website.

23. Mraz was engaged to singer/songwriter and long-time close friend Tristan Prettyman on Christmas Eve 2010; they broke off the engagement six months later.

24. Mraz lives a health-conscious lifestyle and has said that he eats mostly raw vegan foods.

25. His vegan diet has also influenced his music.

26. He owns a five-and-a-half acre avocado farm in Bonsall, California.

27. He is an investor at Café Gratitude, a vegan restaurant in Los Angeles, and named his 2011 tour Gratitude Café in its honor.

28. His hobbies include surfing, yoga and photography.

29. Mraz is a social activist whose philanthropic efforts span wide-ranging issues, including the environment, human rights and LGBT equality.

30. In 2009, he participated in a rescue mission to Ghana with members of Free the Slaves, an international nonprofit working to liberate children sold into slavery.

31. The Jason Mraz Foundation was established in 2011, with a mission to support charities in the areas of human equality, environment preservation and education.

32. Organizations supported by the foundation include VH1's Save The Music Foundation, MusiCares, Surfrider Foundation, Free the Children, Life Rolls On, the School of the Performing Arts in the Richmond Community, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the True Colors Fund, which promotes LGBT equality.

33. Mraz was named the 2010 Surf Industry Manufacturers Association (SIMA) Humanitarian of the Year.

34. He also received the Clean Water Award in 2010 from the Surfrider Foundation, for helping to preserve the world's oceans and beaches.

35. That same year, he teamed up with The Nature Conservancy and created a PSA using his song "I'm Yours" to raise awareness about the nonprofit organization's efforts to protect the earth.

36. On December 16, 2012, Mraz headlined the Milestone Concert in Myanmar to raise awareness about human trafficking, the first foreign artist to play an open-air concert in Myanmar. The concert was organized by MTV EXIT and held in the People's Square in Yangon, with over 70,000 people in attendance, as part of an initiative to raise awareness about human trafficking in Myanmar.

37. Also in 2012, Mraz spent a week in Antarctica with a group of environmentalists, scientists and researchers on a mission led by Al Gore, to learn about the effects of climate change.

38. Mraz was born and raised in Mechanicsville, Virginia.

39. He is of Czech descent through his grandfather, who moved to the United States from Austria-Hungary in 1915.

40. His surname is Czech for "frost".

41. His parents, Tom (Tomáš) Mraz and June, divorced when he was five years old, but he maintains that he had an idyllic childhood, saying, "My hometown of Mechanicsville was very American. There were white picket fences, a church on every street corner, low crime and virtually no drug use. It was a good place to grow up."

42. After graduating from Lee-Davis High School, where he was a member of the cheerleading squad, Mraz attended the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York for about a year and a half, before returning to Mechanicsville and taking on a series of odd jobs.

43. He then enrolled at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia, but instead of attending classes, headed west on a road trip that ultimately brought him to San Diego, where he decided to stay.

44. Jason Thomas Mraz is an American singer-songwriter who first came to prominence in the San Diego coffeehouse scene in 2000.

45. In 2002, he released his debut studio album, Waiting for My Rocket to Come, which contained the hit single "The Remedy (I Won't Worry)".

46. With the release of his second album, Mr. A-Z, in 2005, Mraz achieved major commercial success. The album peaked at number 5 on the Billboard 200 and sold over 100,000 copies in the US.

47. In 2008, Mraz released his third studio album, We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things. It debuted at number 3 on the Billboard 200 and was an international commercial success primarily due to the hit "I'm Yours". The song peaked at number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100, giving him his first top ten single, and spent a then-record 76 weeks on the Hot 100.

48. His fourth album, Love Is a Four Letter Word, peaked at number 2 on the Billboard 200, his highest-charting album to date.

49. Mraz has won two Grammy Awards and received two additional nominations, and has also won two Teen Choice Awards, a People's Choice Award and the Hal David Songwriters Hall of Fame Award.

50. He has earned Platinum and multi-Platinum certifications in over 20 countries, and has toured in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, the Middle East and parts of Africa.

Source: Wikipedia.org