Paul McCartney no longer cries softly over his original bass guitar.
A five-year investigation by the instrument's maker, aided by a team of journalists, helped reunite the Beatles with the distinctive 1961 violin-shaped Höfner electric that was lost half a century ago and is estimated to be worth £10m (12.6m dollars).
McCartney had asked Höfner to help find the missing instrument that helped launch Beatlemania across the universe, Scott Jones, a journalist who worked with Höfner executive Nick Wass, said Friday (Feb. 16) for to locate it.
“Paul said to me, 'Hey, since you're from Hoffner, couldn't you help me find my bass?' Vas said. “And that's what sparked this great hunt. Sitting there, seeing what the missing bass meant to Paul, I was determined to solve the mystery.”
McCartney bought the bass for about 30 pounds ($37) in 1961, when the Beatles were making their chops during a series of residencies in Hamburg, Germany. The instrument was played on the Beatles' first two records and appeared on hits such as “Love Me Do”, “Twist and Shout” and “She Loves You”.
“Because I was left-handed, it looked less silly because it was symmetrical,” McCartney once said. “I got into it. And as soon as I bought it, I fell in love with it.”
Rumored to have been stolen around the time The Beatles were recording their last album, Let it bein 1969. But no one was sure when it disappeared.
What started out as a long and winding road for Wass to track down the bass accelerated when Jones got seriously into the hunt after seeing McCartney headline Glastonbury festival in 2022. The stage lights at one point seemed to illuminate nothing but sun burst pattern. bass and Jones wondered if it was the same instrument McCartney played in the early 60s.
When he later searched the Internet, he was surprised to find that the original bass was missing and a search was made for it.
“I was stunned, I was stunned,” Jones said. “I think we live in a world where the Beatles could do almost anything and it would get attention.”
Jones and his wife, Naomi, journalists and researchers, contacted Wass to spread the word.
After hitting a dead end after a roadie lead for The Who, they relaunched The Lost Bass Project in September and within 48 hours were inundated with 600 emails containing the “little gems that got us to where we are today,” he said. Jones. .
One of those emails came from sound engineer Ian Horne, who had worked with McCartney's band Wings, and was the first big breakthrough in the hunt. Horn said the bass was dragged out of the back of his van one night in the Notting Hill section of London in 1972.
Investigators published the new information on their website in October, adding that Horne said McCartney told him not to worry about the theft and that he continued to work for him for another six years.
“But I've been carrying the guilt my whole life,” Horn said.
After posting this update, there was a bigger break when they were contacted by a person who said their father had stolen the bass. The man had no intention of stealing McCartney's instrument and panicked when he realized what he had, Jones said.
The thief, who has not been named, ended up selling it to Ron Guest, owner of the Admiral Blake pub, for a few quid and a few beers.
As the Joneses began searching for relatives of Guest, word had already reached his family. His daughter-in-law contacted McCartney's studio.
Cathy Guest said the old bass that had been in her attic for years looked like what they were looking for.
It had passed from Ron Guest to his older son, who died in a car wreck, and then to a younger son, Haydn Guest, who was married to Kathy and died in 2020.
The instrument was returned to McCartney in December, and it then took about two months to authenticate it.
The project had planned to break the news but was alarmed by Cathy Guest's son Ruaidhri Guest, a 21-year-old film student who posted photos of the guitar on Tuesday on X, formerly Twitter, and wrote: 'I inherited this item which has been returned to Paul McCartney. Share the news.” He posted a message Friday saying the family had been inundated with interview requests and would tell their story eventually.
The instrument's estimated value is based on the fact that a Gibson Kurt Cobain acoustic guitar that he played on MTV Unplugged sold for $6m (£4.7m), Jones said. But it has had almost no value in the last half century.
“The thief couldn't sell it,” Jones said. “Clearly, the Guest family never tried to sell it. It's a red alert because the moment it shows up someone will say “That's Paul McCartney's guitar”.
Now it's McCartney's once again. His official website posted a message announcing his return, saying “Paul is incredibly grateful to everyone involved.”
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/paul-mccartney-reunited-stolen-hofner-bass-guitar-50-years-later-1235610361/