Dear Mr Shredcow,
I would say yes he is bringing the guitar to the mainstream. This is my take from my observations.
As you know, he went to Berkley for a while before he dropped out(someone please correct me), then he got spotted as a talent and was marketed as a lovey dovey pop star( Your body is a wonderland) due to his looks and so called sex appeal. As he was new to the scene then, he had to comply with the labels' marketing strategy and when he had a whole legion of fans( Mostly girls I admit, but who wouldn't want them as fans right?) and he became popular enough with a stable group of regular fans, he started playing and composing the stuff he had originally started out to do, leaning towards his SRV/Hendrix/Albert Collins upbringing.
Thus, fans being fans, follow him loyally thru his transition and swallow up everything he throws at them, and the next thing you know, young Girls and fans become curious about this "hendrix-dude" he keeps mentioning about, and some friends of mine even in Singapore have even asked me to pass them the original recordings of the songs he covers for dunno what reason lah.Hey some even started to listening to the old Blues records as they probably never heard BLUES till they knew Mayer.That is why its quite a phenomenon to me. He is reaching out to the demography where many guitar-based bands have failed since the flower power era of the 60's-70's.
There are some who belong to the group of purists who used to raise their eyebrow at his earlier reviews and etc , but are now slowly taking him seriously.(ME) I'm not his fan boy for that matter, I just appreciate his contribution to music thats all, and I seek to enlighten in any way I can.
