I went back to the boarding house the next day and Vernon McAlister was gone but his guitar was still there. I paid his rent for the three weeks it was in arrears and left word with the landlord where I might be reached. A month later the landlord called me and offered the guitar if I would pay another four weeks rent, about $100. I gladly gave him the money and continued my search for Vernon McAlister. I was far more motivated than previously, having been overwhelmed by his playing and anxious to reunite him with his guitar.
My search led me into Vernon’s past and I learned much more about the things that motivated him to make music and eventually abandon home and family.
Years passed and then, at a conference I heard a recording of one of Vernon’s songs.
Carried away with excitement I spoke to the colleague with the recording and discovered it had been made by a guitar player living in Eastern Arkansas not far from Memphis where the conference was being held.
That was how I met Charlie Shoe and learned he had been taught more than a songs by Vernon McAlister many years before and – a mark of his peculiar genius – had remembered them ever since. He credited that experience when he was nine years old with starting him on a lifelong love affair with the guitar.