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He still looks like the scruffily dressed kid who built a career through constant touring. His concerts still draw well, and each of his first two major label releases have gone platinum.

It's good to be John Mayer, to be respected for your music and to be the object of affection for teenage girls.

And yet what he's proudest of, what excites him more than adoring fans or record sales, is a relationship he's built with a legendary blues artist that will not help him sell a single album or concert ticket. Like the Rolling Stones seeking out Muddy Waters or Eric Clapton's enduring friendship with B. B. King, meeting Buddy Guy was good for Mayer's soul.

"I think about Buddy every single night that I play," says Mayer, who visits the Post-Gazette Pavilion in Burgettstown tonight. "There's not a night that goes by that I don't think about Buddy. Sometimes I even take up one of his little mannerisms, and I go, 'Oh, that was so Buddy!'"

They do seem to be an odd couple: a veteran black musician respected in blues circles and a young white musician who is one of the most recognizable faces in pop music. They met by accident. During interviews, Mayer had been in the habit of mentioning Guy's influence on his work, and it was brought to the blues legend's attention. They had dinner and ended up playing at Guy's club in Chicago.

"I would never commend myself as a blues musician," Mayer says, "but I will say when Buddy and I are onstage together -- the both of us -- watch out."

Mayer's affection for Guy is genuine, not a late affectation. As a kid, he was first drawn to the blues via the music of Stevie Ray Vaughan. Then came Jimi Hendrix, Wes Montgomery, Robert Cray and Guy. While Mayer's music is more pop than not, his guitar playing has always exhibited subtle blues and jazz shadings, even if the kids miss those cues.

Mayer understands this, and knows that some kids could not care less that he's stealing a blues riff from Guy or mimicking Cray or Montgomery.

"Sometimes for some songs it's five people (who care)," he says. "That's the weird thing. With as much choice as I have to play different kinds of things comes a lot of duty in what to play when. Because there are times when I think there's stuff I have to play as an artist, that I have to get out, that I know isn't being received by everybody. But the people who are getting it are getting it in a big way, and will walk away with that as their highlight."

Mayer seems relatively unaffected by his dual status as a star and as a serious musician. He's moved from Los Angeles to New York City, and Manhattan enables him to be, well, John Mayer.

"Nobody gives a (darn) who you are," he says, laughing. "You're just in their way, and I like that. It's like, I don't care what you've done, you're just in my way. It's beautiful.

"I love it," he says. "It's like living in the engine room of getting things done, obviously, and it's good artistically for me. There are some people who need to go away, to go to a beach to write. I don't need to go away. I just have to look outside my window. It's very productive and very streamlined."

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