Joe Ely Reunited With NEWMAN Guitar After 27 Years by: MATT WRIGHT

I have had a NEWMAN stolen and it’s a punch in the gut.  I was lucky for its safe return by some generous soul.  Matt tells the story of a NEWMAN Joe had stolen back in 1986. I wondered how strong that bittersweet moment was for Matt handing off the guitar to Joe.  It was meant to be and we’re happy for Matt’s side of the story:  

-Jeff Smith

Matt writes:

Back in the late 80’s I stopped into a local pawn shop and looked over their selection of guitars. This was a normal process for me, looking for a good deal on a cool guitar with a shoestring budget. The shopkeeper could tell I wasn’t overly impressed with the selection, so he told me he had a guitar coming off hold today and asked if I wanted to see it. He brought it out to the counter and opened the case. I was immediately captivated by the unique instrument. It was something I’d never seen before, the shape, the billiard ball fret markers, it was clear that this was a handmade guitar which was unusual to see, especially for an 18-year-old kid back then. The clincher was that it had two EMG pickups which were the standard for the Thrash music I played at the time, I HAD TO HAVE IT! I recall the shopkeeper wanted around $300 for it which was more than I had, so he let me give him a deposit to hold it until I could run home and get more money, which I promptly did.

The guitar had no identifying marks or clues as to who made it so I had to assume that some wily luthier had put his heart and soul into the guitar and must have fell on hard times and pawned it. The guitar had a billiard motif; billiard felt green with black diamonds on the body. The pickguard is a black triangle offset on the guitar body. The neck is a birdseye maple but the fretboard markers were what took the whole build to the next level. They were 3D miniature billiard balls set in, I believe an epoxy. It was clear to me that a true passion went into its creation. The guitar had been PLAYED! This was long before the relic craze had taken hold of the guitar community, but this guitar looked like it had been down many country roads, dragging behind the truck. The word that sums up my mystery guitar is MOJO, it had it in spades.

Over the years, friends had tried to get me to sell it to them, but none were willing to pony up the cash I felt the guitar was worth. A few times I actually put ads on social media sites to sell it, but I usually had a ridiculously high price attached. In 2013, I received a comment on one of those sale ads. Someone saw my ad and commented that it looked like a Chandler Austin Special guitar. Being this was my first lead to some sort of identity on my guitar, I immediately found a FB site for that brand. The guitar shape was similar to my mystery guitar, so I was excited thinking I had finally solved the mystery. I sent them pics of my guitar thinking I’d found the identity but after a couple of days they told me it wasn’t one of theirs. They did however tell me that it could be a Ted Newman-Jones model. After searching the internet and seeing some of his creations I knew this was another solid lead. I was blown away to find that Ted was a guitar tech for the Rolling Stones and created some five string guitars, I remember thinking, “this has to be the mad scientist that created my guitar”. I managed to find Ted’s sister on a guitar forum site, and she told me to send her pics and info on my guitar and she would get it to Ted. About two weeks later I received a handwritten letter from Ted himself and was out of my mind excited to read all of what he had to say about my mystery guitar.

It was fall of 2013, and with my wife Dawn by my side, I excitedly opened the letter from Ted and began reading aloud. Ted opened with normal pleasantries and explained that he was glad I didn’t sell the guitar for the price I listed it for as it was worth much more. He went on to explain that he had made the guitar for Joe Ely. My heart was racing, after 25 years of not knowing anything about my guitar, it’s lineage was finally being revealed. I collected myself and read on. Ted then explained that my guitar had been stolen from Joe in the mid-eighties. I felt the blood drain from my face and I looked over at my wife who had placed her hand over her mouth. I couldn’t believe it, it couldn’t be true. My guitar was stolen, it didn’t belong to me?

Dawn needed proof. We ran to the computer and began looking up Joe Ely and before long we stumbled across a video of Joe playing at Austin City Limits and there in his hands was my mystery guitar. There could be no doubt. There was only one guitar like that in the whole world and that same guitar was currently hanging on my wall.

Dawn and I sat there and watched in stunned silence. “I have to give it back” I said, “it’s his guitar”. We continued to look at pictures of Joe and actually found what looked like a portrait of Joe and his family and there it was, Joe’s guitar. From there I looked up Joe’s website. Joe and his band hadn’t played in San Francisco in three years, but he was scheduled to play there the following week.

I sent a message through his website and quickly made contact with Lance Webb, Joe’s Manager. It wasn’t long before I received a call from Lance. I quickly explained my story and I could tell he didn’t know whether to believe me or not, but he said he was going to contact Joe and let him know about the guitar. Shortly after, I received THE CALL from Joe Ely.

Joe Ely, this guy is one cool cat. Even his speaking voice has a calm southern melody. I think we were both in shock, but Joe knew without a doubt it was his long-lost guitar. He briefly gave me some background on how it was stolen, and I shared my 25 years with his guitar. We spoke for a while and decided that I would drive up to S.F. the following week to deliver his guitar at his show. Joe put my wife and I on the guest list and even included a few of my friends as well.

I began to worry; the guitar was beat up, did Joe do that or maybe the thieves did that? Will Joe think I abused it? The only thing I ever did was changing the strings now and again and made sure it was safely kept in the house(s), I had moved six times since I bought it. Had I done enough?

It was the day of the show. My family and friends drove into the city. Joe arranged to let us in early to meet him and see the guitar. The moment he pulled it out of the beat-up Gibson chainsaw case, he looked it over and said, I remember putting every dent and scratch on this guitar. It was then that I knew that I was chosen to protect that guitar for a reason. You see, that guitar and I never truly bonded. I loved and appreciated it above all of my other guitars, but it didn’t speak for me. I had owned that guitar for over 25 years but never played it live on stage. Normally I would trade or sell a guitar that I didn’t need to play live but I wouldn’t or couldn’t allow this one to go. Joe was incredibly gracious and asked me to play the guitar on stage with him that night.

It had been a whirlwind couple of weeks, and this was the crescendo. I decided to pass, it was too much for me. Joe offered instead that I present the guitar on stage after he had shared the story with the crowd, I agreed. The presentation was filmed by my buddy Tim and can be found on YouTube if you search Joe Ely and Matt Wright. This is just a small part of the story and there is much more drama and intrigue surrounding this very guitar. Joe is a gifted storyteller and the video will shed some light on the other parts of this guitars incredible story.