The way Ronnie Waters tells it, he pointed at a map, bought a bus ticket and left Tarboro with his guitar and $40 in his pocket.

That was 33 years ago, but Waters, 50, is back in town. He owns several guitars now after a lifetime of work on stage and in the studio.

His plays lead quitar in Sara Dew's Dew Point Rising Band that will debut Friday night, June 19 at Keihin Auditorium on Edgecombe Community College's campus.

The 8 p.m. concert is a benefit for Relay for Life sponsored by the Masonic lodges of Rocky Mount, Scotland Neck and Tarboro. Concord Lodge No. 58 of Tarboro is donating its share to Relay For Life in memory of Mike Alford who succumbed to cancer last year.

Sara will release her new CD that water produced. He wrote three songs for the album, helped with four others and wrote all the music for those seven songs.

"He helped me out a lot," Sara said. "He put the music to our songs."

Water has been making music all his life. He remembers entering a battle of the Bands event in Tarboro when he was only 14.

"I think I finished next to last," he said, "but I had fun.

"I developed because I was hungry."

He as looking for fun when he left his hometown and headed to Florida years ago. He wound up playing his guitar seven nights a week. He went on the road with Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts out of Chapel Hill.

"We would not know where we were going when we got on the bus," he said, shaking his head. "We played mostly frat parties."

Waters has an impressive list of entertainers he has played with, on stage and in the studio. George Strait, Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs, the Louvin Brothers, Jay and the Techniques, Joe Simon, the Tams, the Band of Oz.

"He's one the best guitar pickers around," said David Mayer, who manages Dew and her band Dew Point Rising.

Waters and drummer Martin Parker of Edenton played for Patty Loveless.

"I've been around a long time," Waters said.