An iconic Nudie suit's trek from the cover of the Flying Burrito Brothers' 1969 album The Gilded Palace of Sin to a current exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum took some unlikely turns.
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CBS News spotlighted how the artifact went from presumed missing for over 50 years to the possession of Necia Ethridge, the daughter of Flying Burrito Brothers bassist Chris Ethridge.
The rose-adorned suit, an original by Nashville's legendary clothing designer Nudie Cohn, went missing the same year as the album's release from the car of the band's roadie, Phil Kaufman.
Chris Ethridge's 2012 death made the disappearance of the suit sting even more for his daughter.
"Most of what I know about him during that time is from his personal stories, from photographs, from amazing footage that has come up over the years," Necia told CBS News. "Experiencing so much loss and losing my father, there actually was a time where I could say that I was pretty down."
Things got worse when more of the family's belongings got stolen.
"After my father passed away in 2012, the home that our family had owned since 1947 had a lot of his personal items, his memorabilia, his record collection," Necia said. "Pretty much everything —any and all memorabilia that my family owned of my father's— was in that home. And it was plundered."
Around Thanksgiving of 2022, a family friend told Necia that they'd found the suit for sale. It'd been purchased in 1970 by Elton John at a shop in Los Angeles, with the rocker wearing it a year later during a broadcast of the BBC's "Top of the Pops."
John sold the suit in 1998, and in 2022, it went up for auction.
"When I received the email that said, 'Yes, how are you going to pay me?' I really just wanted to, like, throw everything up in the air and just go parading down Main Street like, I bought my dad's suit! I bought my dad's suit!," Necia said.
The suit is now alongside the three others on the Gilded Palace of Sin cover in "Western Edge," an exhibit about the impact of California country-rock on popular culture.
