The Daily Southerner, Tarboro, NC

Local News

Related Photos

  • Calvin Adkins

    images_sizedimage_163140231
June 12, 2009

Veteran guitar man helps young singer

Ronnie Waters wrote three songs and most of the music on Sara Dew CD

W. TERRY SMITH

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.

What about Sara Dew, the 17-year-old from Tarboro who went all the way the finals in Nashville, Tenn., the Colgate Country Showdown last fall?

"I think she'll be fine," he answered. "She's got the talent and pulled off the studio work pretty good.

"I have been on stage with her when she sang backup, and she did a good job then, too. I think she's the right package. She sings well and has the things going that people like these days."

When Waters is not performing with Dew Point Rising or Diggerfoot, a popular local rock band, he's in the studio with the Band of Oz, a beach music outfit.

"I'm always writing," he said.

"And I am a part-time farmer, too," Waters said.

Tickers to the Sara Dew and Dew Point Rising concert are $10 and available in Tarboro at the Keihin Box Office, Ace Home Center, Suburban Grill, 33 Grill and Piggly Wiggly, or by calling Hartwell Fuller at 883-0112 or David Mayer at 883-9826.

Text Only
Local News
  • Teresa Bryant headshot.jpg Bryant declines to seek re-election

    Teresa DeLoatch Bryant announced she will not seek re-election to the District 2 seat she now holds on the Edgecombe County Public Schools Board. The announcement came 91 days before the May 8 Primary Election and nearly a year after the first-term plus one year board member announced her resignation for personal and career reasons. She later rescinded her decision.

    February 6, 2012 1 Photo

  • MimiHerman.jpg W.A. Patillo receives $5,000 poetry grant

    W.A. Pattillo School has been awarded $5,000 from the North Carolina Arts Council for Poetry in the Classroom with Mimi Herman.
    The funds will be used to provide a week of poetry writing experiences for seven fourth grade classes through the expertise and creativity of Herman. Students will gain self-confidence, and will view themselves as writers rather than merely consumers of literature. They will learn to use language effectively and creatively to communicate thoughts, feeling, and impressions.

    February 6, 2012 1 Photo

  • IMG_5889.JPG Pizza Bowl

    The biggest football game of the year brings the largest sale of the year for two area pizza restaurants.
    Tarboro branches of Pizza Inn and Dominos Pizza are gearing up for Super Bowl XLVI Sunday by increasing their regular employee lineup by as many as seven.
    Pizza Inn is running a special that they believe will keep them busy throughout the day. Last year they sold over 200 large pizzas on Super Bowl Sunday compared to 50 on an average Sunday.

    February 3, 2012 1 Photo

  • Edgecombe unemployment up in December

    TARBORO — Unemployment rates increased in 93 of North Carolina’s 100 counties in December. Rates decreased in four counties and remained the same in three.
    Edgecombe, which saw a slight improvement in November, fell back to its October 2011 level (15.7%). Of the 100 counties in North Carolina, Edgecombe and Dare are tied at third highest in unemployment. 

    February 3, 2012

  • Three ECPS campuses ahead of First Lady's nutritional guidelines

    When First Lady Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced new guidelines for the nutritional overhaul of school meals last week, they could have chosen three of Edgecombe County's public schools as their models.

    February 2, 2012

  • Lynn_Cale.jpg ECC Executive Named to United Way Board

    J. Lynn Cale, associate vice president of instruction at Edgecombe
    Community College, has been named to the United Way Tar River Region
    Board of Directors.
        The Tar River Region serves Edgecombe and Nash counties. Cale
    will serve a one-year term, from January to December 2012.
        He and other board members oversee 41 local health and human
    service programs funded through United Way as well as 21 Community
    Partners and various community development partnerships.
    RIGHT: J. Lynn Cale

    February 2, 2012 1 Photo

  • Pattillo Alumni Association on the move

    The Board of Directors (BOD) of W.A. Pattillo High School National Alumni
    Association, Inc. held a meeting on Jan. 21, at Pattillo School under the leadership of its President, Dr. Fred S. Wood, Jr.  All of the officers except one were in attendance, accompanied by 9 of 16 Board Members and 9 of 10 Appointed Standing Committee Chairpersons.

    February 2, 2012

  • BandSEDriverHouse.jpg Local students selected for N.C. Eastern All-District Band

    Three Edgecombe County Public Schools students have been chosen to play in the All-District Band. Lillian House, an alto saxophone player and Kaitlin Driver, a French horn player both eighth graders from South Edgecombe Middle School and West Edgecombe Middle School eighth grade flute player, Taylor Joyner earned the honor this year and will grace the stage at East Carolina University’s Wright Auditorium Feb. 3.

    February 1, 2012 2 Photos

  • Robbery prevention

    Community education on robbery prevention shares equal importance with the search of robbery suspects. Robbery prevention may seem unachievable, but we can not continue to ignore the problem of robbery in our community. As local citizens, we should create ways in which everyone can benefit from the knowledge of robbery prevention.

    February 1, 2012

  • GHW 01-28-1221.JPG George Henry White: tribute to a great American

      Why isn’t George Henry White a household name?  If Vincent Spalding has anything to do with it, that will soon change.
         Long ignored in African American history books and recognitions, George Henry White of North Carolina was elected to Congress in 1896, and re-elected in 1898, becoming the last African American elected to Congress after Reconstruction, and the first to serve in the 20th century.

    January 31, 2012 1 Photo