"Echoes of Keef’s Legendary Telecasters: The Newman Torn and Frayed Edition Could Be the Ultimate Rolling Stones-Inspired T-Type We’ve Always Wanted"] - Guitar | Technique

Although unavailable for many years, the late Ted Newman’s unique solidbody – originally conceived for Keith Richards back in the ’70s – has made quite a return since the introduction of the 5 String in 2024, the first of an ongoing series of limited-edition models made in the UK under the stewardship of the Cream T Custom Shop.

Along with that guitar, there’s been the single-pickup Honeycomb Junior GT-40, the dual-pickup Honeycomb Senior (both with either Guitar-X swappable or fixed-pickup options), and towards the end of 2025 this Torn and Frayed addition, “a limited edition run of guitars designed to celebrate the history of Newman Guitars and Cream T Pickups”.

It’s offered in artfully and heavily aged nitrocellulose Butterscotch Blonde (as pictured), Black, Cherry Burst and Vintage White.

The Newman design centres around the offset single‑cutaway slab body, which – under the worn paint here – is solid obeche, contributing to its light weight of 2.58kg (5.68lb). With a comfortable asymmetric profile, the bolt-on neck has 24 frets and, with a shorter 629mm (24.75-inch) scale length, is topped off with that distinct and lightly back-angled six-a-side headstock.

There’s no Guitar-X pickup swapping here, though: the Cream T Banger & Mash humbucker mounts on the black scratchplate, the new Mint T single coil in the aged Gotoh T-style bridge plate. The controls obviously follow the Telecaster’s more modern configuration albeit with a pull-switch on the tone control to split the neck humbucker.

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(Image credit: Future/Matt Lincoln)

Rolling Stones fans will know the origin of the name, and there’s more than a whiff of Keef’s fabled old Telecasters about the style, enhanced by pretty big frets suggesting an earlier refret. But it’s a seriously practical design, not least strapped on, with good access to the upper frets, the comfort helped by the lightly rounded neck heel.

At the bridge the Mint T doesn’t sound over-wound, it’s bright and spanky and seems to suit some crunch where it comes across as raw and cutting, while the Banger & Mash almost sounds like it looks – a big Tele neck voice that has clarity with humbucker width that can be split to clean things up and drop back to a really classic mixed pickup combination. It’s not just the finish that looks old – the guitar sounds it, too.