London A guitar expert and two journalists have launched a global hunt for a missing bass guitar owned by Paul McCartney, bidding to solve what they brand “the greatest mystery in rock and roll”.
The trio of lifelong Beatles fans are searching for McCartney’s original Höfner bass — last seen in London in 1969 — in order to reunite the instrument with the former Fab Four frontman.
McCartney played the instrument throughout the 1960s, including at Hamburg’s Top Ten Club, at the Cavern Club in Liverpool and on early Beatles recordings at London’s Abbey Road studios.
“This is the search for the most important bass in history — Paul McCartney’s original Höfner,” the search party says on a website — thelostbass.com — newly-created for the endeavour.
“This is the bass you hear on Love Me Do, She Loves You, and Twist and Shout. The bass that powered Beatlemania — and shaped the sound of the modern world.”
McCartney bought the left-handed Höfner 500/1 Violin Bass for around £30 — about £550 ($585) today— in Hamburg in 1961, during The Beatles’ four-month residency at the Top Ten Club.
“For about £30, I found this Höfner violin bass,” said McCarney, 81. “And to me, because I was left-handed, it looked less daft because it was symmetrical. I got into that. And once I bought it, I fell in love with it.”
It disappeared without a trace nearly eight years later in January 1969 when the band were recording the “Get Back/Let It Be” sessions in central London.
By then its appearance was unique — after being overhauled in 1964, including with a complete respray in a three-part dark sunburst polyurethane finish — and it had become McCartney’s back-up bass.
Nick Wass, a semi-retired former marketing manager and electric guitar developer for Höfner who co-wrote the definitive book on the Höfner 500/1 Violin Bass, is spearheading the search.
“It was played in Hamburg, at The Cavern Club, at Abbey Road. Isn’t that enough alone to get this bass back?” he added.
“I know, because I talked with him about it, that Paul would be so happy — thrilled — if this bass could get back to him.”
Wass is joined by journalist husband and wife team Scott and Naomi Jones.
Wass told the BBC that the famous Beatle asked him about the guitar during a recent conversation — and that is how the campaign to find it began. “For most people, they will remember it… it’s the bass that made the Beatles,” Wass said.
Scott became curious about the guitar’s fate after watching McCartney’s 2022 headline set at Glastonbury and approached Höfner — only to discover they were already having conversations about tracking it down after being urged to by their famous client.
Appealing for fresh tips on its whereabouts, they insist their mission is “a search, not an investigation”, noting all information will be treated confidentially.
“With a little help from our friends — from fans and musicians to collectors and music shops — we can get the bass back to where it once belonged,” the trio stated on the website.
“Paul McCartney has given us so much over the last 62 years. The Lost Bass project is our chance to give something back.”
The project’s public appeal has been live for less than 48 hours but the team has already received hundreds of new leads — including two of particular interest which are being followed up on.
The trio said other previously lost guitars have been found.
John Lennon’s Gibson J-160E — which he used to write I Want To Hold Your Hand — disappeared during The Beatles’ Christmas Show in 1963.
It resurfaced half a century later, and then sold at auction for $2.4 million.