... being a re-post of an article about the late guitar genius, Ted Newman Jones
Funny how things work out some time. I reposted this article from 1981 ...
Guitar World-May 1981 Andy Summers cover
But while this post was not written by Ted Newman Jones, Jeff Smith was its author, having set up the Facebook Page at Ted's request. More on that in Pt. III of this three-parter. Here is ...
Keith’s Right-Hand Man
from Guitar World May 1981, Page 51
By NOE GOLDWASSER
[This story was lifted wholesale from Guitar World magazine by its author, Noe Gold aka "Noe the G," who was the first editor of that illustrious magazine. It's adaptation was inspired by a post by Daniel Thornbrough on the Facebook page of its subject, Ted "Newman Guitars" Jones.]
I’d been trying to locate this guy for months, this Ted Newman Jones character – or
Newman-Ted Jones or just plain Newman, by most ("I use that name because whoever heard of 'Jones Guitars?’ ”). I'd already decided that the magazine ought to have a story about the technician who handles a band's guitars. Hearing about this guy with a little guitar shop in Austin who has been going out on tour with the Rolling Stones since becoming Keith Richards' personal instrument caretaker, tactician and moral support, and who had been rumored by his close buddies to be quite bonkers and a lot of fun made me more than anxious to meet him.
About the time I gave up on the idea of finding some excuse to go to Austin and talk to him. I got a call from a mutual acquaintance that Newman was in town on some projects that I'd be interested in, and that he was not averse to talking about them. So, the first thing I got to see Newman do was give some advice to our mutual friend (John Rivers Bicknell, the guy who draws the cartoons in this magazine) about a guitar he'd given up for dead. He also sold him one he was kind of looking for.
John was telling us about the Telecaster he'd just committed to the shop for a new neck, since "some old guy in Shreveport redid it. It was an original 1953 neck. And he sanded it down so thin that the headstock was coming up. He sanded the first four frets almost flat."
"Owwww,” howls Newman, truly in pain, "The guy didn't know what he was doin'."
"No. he didn't. So it was rounded. About the sixth or seventh fret it started getting round. But it was flat before that. It was just a mess. So I'll have to throw the neck away, unfortunately."
"Well, don't do that. You know I can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Any kind of neck like that, John, you know I got all these heat pressures and shit. I can –"
“– just bend it back. Well, I'll give you this neck," says John, "and you can, if you think it's savable.''
“Sure, it’s savable. I put heat lamps on 'em and all kinds of clamping devices you know, different tensions and pressures and add humidity and subtract humidity. Shake all the stuff up and, you know, dust it with a little gris-gris dust. Meantime, I'll ship you this Esquire I got that you'll really like better. It's got kind of a, I think it's a Dimarzio pickup.
"It's a Schecter neck – a full-fitting neck, not too thin – it's probably gonna be real similar to what you've put on your Strat but it also can be taken down to any size – when they're too small is when you're in trouble. It can be shaped to any size. You know if you were to play it awhile and didn't like it you could say, hey put a V in it or make it thinner or somethin'.
"It's got a chunky feeling – I like it 'cause I play so much acoustic guitar."
Newman was in town, it turns out, both on guitar business and on Rolling Stones business. Though they put out a lot of p.r. about farewells to touring in the future, the band was beginning to rustle into activity. Working on the recording of other acts like Max Romeo, signed to their Rolling Stones label; getting out into the street and partying and making noises like they were going to be touring in either spring or summer. Keith was doing all this running around. and writing some songs. Studio time had been booked at New York's Electric Ladyland for work on the next album.
So Ted Newman Jones, the ''bubba" from Tennessee, is holed up with his lady at the Chelsea Hotel to look over Keith's guitars, share ideas with him about a few things and generally hang out and keep him company on various exploits like wild rides through the metropolis in a checker cab that Keith had bought as a New Year's gift for his girlfriend. Because that's been part of his job for the past eight years – to hang out with Keith Richards and keep him and his guitars in tune.
So Ted Newman Jones, the ''bubba" from Tennessee, is holed up with his lady at the Chelsea Hotel to look over Keith's guitars, share ideas with him about a few things and generally hang out and keep him company on various exploits like wild rides through the metropolis in a checker cab that Keith had bought as a New Year's gift for his girlfriend. Because that's been part of his job for the past eight years – to hang out with Keith Richards and keep him and his guitars in tune.
When the Stones go
out on the road,
Ted Newman Jones
leaves his rather
rustic surroundings
for months on end of performing.
His job for the past eight
years has been to
keep thirty-odd
guitars in tune, and to keep
Keith Richards together.
When the Stones go
out on the road,
Ted Newman Jones
leaves his rather
rustic surroundings
for months on end of performing.
His job for the past eight
years has been to
keep thirty-odd
guitars in tune, and to keep
Keith Richards together.
Newman is pretty thorough about his craftsmanship. He builds his own fingerboards and a lot of his own hardware. He uses Schaller machines and some Schecter bridge parts and neck plates. He makes his own truss rods out of stainless steel ("It's stronger'') and even builds his own cases. Newman has been known to watch a particular cherry tree that was old and "seasoned standing" and save the wood for one of his special guitars.
He's made a five-string model tor Keith, which is light and easy to handle. It's missing the bottom string, and is tuned to G D G B D – its G-tuning may be heard on "Jumping Jack Flash,” "Street Fighting Man,” "Can't Always Get What You Want,” "Brown Sugar," "Tumblin' Dice" and a number of other songs that would-be Glimmer clones always have a hard time figuring out from the record. The sound comes from the five-string that Newman made for Keith which was lost in a fire. That was the first guitar Newman built for Keith.
The story goes that Newman, being ravaged by a Stones mania that grasped him trancelike, stole his father's credit card and flew over to Europe to show Keith a guitar. "That is a fucking wild story," says Bubba right now, clearing the record, "and not true at all. It grew from a joke I made in an interview. Some guys'll print anything. What really happened was I got a credit card loan – at that time I was eighteen or something, and you could get a Bankamericard loan for two hundred bucks. I went down and told 'em I was going to France to meet Keith Richards and give him a guitar, which turned out to be true. The guy kind of looked at me like – hmmmm, if you pull this one off. … A girlfriend of mine sent me a hundred bucks, and then my mother was so proud that I'd got this bank loan that she gave me a hundred bucks and I split for Europe.
"Newman" has built guitars for the heavies. Tom Petty wanted one with broken heartson the fingerboard.Dylan got crosses instead of dot-markers.
"I had with me this little Rickenbacker solidbody which I'd found and fixed up. Put my touch on it and made it look the way I make a guitar look, which is pretty cool, and he liked it. I told him I'd done the work myself and so he could see where I was coming from and that's how I got the job to travel and take care of instruments and tune and stuff like that – actually. to be more or less a companion to him on the road."
From 1972, during the touring heyday of the Stones, that was Newman's job. Working three months on, nine months off during peak seasons, he was with the group through all the major tours except the last one. He was at Altamont, tossing perfectly tuned guitars deftly to his man. He lived with the band in England for a couple of years and he and Keith became inseparable. He'd go on jet-jags and binges, hell-bent for leather tours at a stepped-up metabolism rate, then retreat to his more rustic surroundings in Arkansas, and later in Austin, where Keith sponsored him in his endeavor to set up a guitar shop.
In between tours one time, he flew down to Nazareth, Pennsylvania and toured the Martin plant as a guest of Martin guitar historian Mike Longworth, who answered his many questions about how the instruments were put together. He went back to Arkansas and finished his apprenticeship with luthier Leo Erickson. After a few guitar projects for Keith he found himself in business.
Today, Newman enjoys a reputation which gets him more work than any major ad campaign could. He is constantly getting referrals by people who have been pleased with his personalized attention. Newman's guitars are body-fitted to the individual, with neck scales made to taste as well.
And inlays. “Dylan asks me what I could do for him and I just named out things that I had done. Some of the stuff had been things out of a deck of cards – there were hearts, diamonds, spades. He says, 'How about crosses?' I says, 'What kind of crosses?' He says, 'Christian crosses.' I said 'OK, sure.' It was a custom job.'
From 1972, during the touring heyday of the Stones, that was Newman's job. Working three months on, nine months off during peak seasons, he was with the group through all the major tours except the last one. He was at Altamont, tossing perfectly tuned guitars deftly to his man. He lived with the band in England for a couple of years and he and Keith became inseparable. He'd go on jet-jags and binges, hell-bent for leather tours at a stepped-up metabolism rate, then retreat to his more rustic surroundings in Arkansas, and later in Austin, where Keith sponsored him in his endeavor to set up a guitar shop.
In between tours one time, he flew down to Nazareth, Pennsylvania and toured the Martin plant as a guest of Martin guitar historian Mike Longworth, who answered his many questions about how the instruments were put together. He went back to Arkansas and finished his apprenticeship with luthier Leo Erickson. After a few guitar projects for Keith he found himself in business.
Today, Newman enjoys a reputation which gets him more work than any major ad campaign could. He is constantly getting referrals by people who have been pleased with his personalized attention. Newman's guitars are body-fitted to the individual, with neck scales made to taste as well.
And inlays. “Dylan asks me what I could do for him and I just named out things that I had done. Some of the stuff had been things out of a deck of cards – there were hearts, diamonds, spades. He says, 'How about crosses?' I says, 'What kind of crosses?' He says, 'Christian crosses.' I said 'OK, sure.' It was a custom job.'
Indeed, when you look for Newman at the next Stones tour, he'll be somewhere behind Keith's ampswith a set of earphones tuned into a strobe-tuner,which is plugged into one of nine or ten guitars onstage.
He's also made a guitar tor Tom Petty that has broken hearts inlaid along the fingerboard, and special axes for Willie Nelson's band, Chris Ethridge, Joe Ely and a growing list of others. When this sort of life starts to pale, Newman will once again take to the road. In fact, he seemed to be open to the possibility of an Austin-based guitar tech consultancy, which would enable him to travel out with other bands than the Stones.
"See, I think the Stones'll go out in spring or summer, and I'll probably go with 'em. But it would be nice to continue the momentum, going out on three or four gigs with the Pretenders, or even train their guitar action so it's more proficient, and then fly back to my home base and make some more guitars. That would be ideal. A real consultancy operation. Kind of do some preliminary road-work, go to gigs and see what's going to be happening operationally, preplan the tour. They're going on a world tour. I've been to a lot of places, but I'd be interested to go to some places I haven’t been, like Japan."
What he does onstage during a show can be summed up in his own words by the motto "Don't Panic." These words are evident in his khaki-colored approach to stage pyrotechnics. "There's bound to be all kinds of things that can fuck up and you'll want to be there to catch a flying instrument, and have another one ready and in tune for the next number. That's the main thing to watch out for."
Indeed, when you look for Newman at the next Stones tour, he'll be somewhere behind Keith's amps with a set of earphones tuned into a strobe-tuner, which is plugged into one of nine or ten guitars onstage. Some of these will be tuned for different slews of songs in, say a G tuning. For these, Newman will have guitars set up to play this tuning in both the natural arrangement and with a capo.
"The other rule I have is if somebody on stage is pissed off about something, don't take it personally. On the other hand, don't cater to their every whim, otherwise you'll never get your work done.”
After doing this for a few nights a week for three months, Newman will drag his ass back home, where the guy who turned him on to his first Rolling Stones record is still incredulous at the fact that Ted Newman Jones actually works with Mick, Keith, Ron, Charlie and Bill. He'll get back in that workshop and tell yarns all winter, getting ready for the next big blowout.
"See, I think the Stones'll go out in spring or summer, and I'll probably go with 'em. But it would be nice to continue the momentum, going out on three or four gigs with the Pretenders, or even train their guitar action so it's more proficient, and then fly back to my home base and make some more guitars. That would be ideal. A real consultancy operation. Kind of do some preliminary road-work, go to gigs and see what's going to be happening operationally, preplan the tour. They're going on a world tour. I've been to a lot of places, but I'd be interested to go to some places I haven’t been, like Japan."
What he does onstage during a show can be summed up in his own words by the motto "Don't Panic." These words are evident in his khaki-colored approach to stage pyrotechnics. "There's bound to be all kinds of things that can fuck up and you'll want to be there to catch a flying instrument, and have another one ready and in tune for the next number. That's the main thing to watch out for."
Indeed, when you look for Newman at the next Stones tour, he'll be somewhere behind Keith's amps with a set of earphones tuned into a strobe-tuner, which is plugged into one of nine or ten guitars onstage. Some of these will be tuned for different slews of songs in, say a G tuning. For these, Newman will have guitars set up to play this tuning in both the natural arrangement and with a capo.
"The other rule I have is if somebody on stage is pissed off about something, don't take it personally. On the other hand, don't cater to their every whim, otherwise you'll never get your work done.”
After doing this for a few nights a week for three months, Newman will drag his ass back home, where the guy who turned him on to his first Rolling Stones record is still incredulous at the fact that Ted Newman Jones actually works with Mick, Keith, Ron, Charlie and Bill. He'll get back in that workshop and tell yarns all winter, getting ready for the next big blowout.
