“It’s the old rockers’ guitar. You can wear it all night!” It weighs under 6lbs, has a honeycomb chambered body, you can swap out the pickups, and Billy Gibbons loves it – meet the Newman Honeycomb Junior GT-40 Guitar-X ‘Ultimate Billy’
Fresh out of the Cream T Custom Shop, this high-end electric with Guitar-X pickup swapping and a honeycomb body is pointing the way to a brighter (lighter) future for electric guitar
(Image credit: Future / Olly Curtis)
Earlier this year we introduced the Newman 5 String, a cracking version of a guitar that was designed in the late ’70s by the late luthier and Stones tech Ted Newman Jones III to originally cater for the five-string needs of Keith Richards.
It marked the first joint venture between the US company Newman Guitars, headed by Jeff Smith, and the UK’s Cream T Custom Shop, who makes the guitars in limited runs here in the UK.
If that 5 String was firmly rooted in the past, then this latest UK Newman brings the story bang up to date with an emulation of the USA Newman guitar that Billy F Gibbons has been touring with. The Big G, of course, already has ties with Cream T, who created his Whiskerbucker humbuckers and other pickups, and he also had some design input into the first Cream T guitar design, the Aurora.
It might have one string more and one pickup less than that 5 String, but this new addition also uses honeycomb chambering – developed by US luthier John Bolin who’s made many guitars for BFG – to the already lightweight obeche slab body. It’s capped with a thin maple top under the cream-bound Baby Blue opaque gloss finish, the only colour currently offered.
(Image credit: Future / Olly Curtis)
Another difference from the 5 String is that the 629mm (24.75-inch) 24-fret maple bolt-on neck here is chambered and then reinforced with a pair of carbon rods. The fingerboard is bound maple with abalone dots and a gloss finish, while the Newman-designed string-through bridge changes to a Music City wraparound.
What doesn’t change is the unique outline that Ted created, and in this chambered style it’s very light in weight at 2.62kg (5.74lb) but hangs beautifully on a strap. “It’s the old rockers’ guitar,” quips Cream T owner, Tim Lobley. “You can wear it all night!”
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(Image credit: Future / Olly Curtis)
(Image credit: Future / Olly Curtis)
As we’ve seen with previous UK-made Cream T and Newman guitars, the craft is first-class and that includes the simple pull-out/push-in Guitar-X pickup swapping system.
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And with five pickups in the pack (all coil-splittable, except the Original Banger), there’s plenty to listen to, not least two flavours of the Whiskerbucker contrasted by the subtly more Fender-style taste of that Banger & Mash.
(Image credit: Future / Olly Curtis)
Of course, you can buy any Cream T and other brand humbucker-sized pickups with the Guitar-X mounting, or simply buy the mounting frames and solder them on yourself.
A brave new world for pickup tinkerers and a superb guitar to play the host. If it’s good enough for BFG…
Dave Burrluck is one of the world’s most experienced guitar journalists, who started writing back in the '80s for International Musician and Recording World, co-founded The Guitar Magazine and has been the Gear Reviews Editor of Guitarist magazine for the past two decades. Along the way, Dave has been the sole author of The PRS Guitar Book and The Player's Guide to Guitar Maintenance as well as contributing to numerous other books on the electric guitar. Dave is an active gigging and recording musician and still finds time to make, repair and mod guitars, not least for Guitarist’s The Mod Squad.
