In their 1969 song Get Back, the Beatles famously sang, "Get back to where you once belonged." Miraculously, Paul McCartney's first bass guitar, a Höfner 500/1 model he purchased in Hamburg, Germany, in 1961, has resurfaced. It was stolen from him more than 50 years ago, in October 1972.
The team behind The Lost Bass – a search campaign launched in 2018 to find the instrument – confirmed in a statement on Thursday, February 15 that "The bass is complete and still with its original case. It will need some repairs to make it playable again, but a team of professionals can easily carry these out." In the statement published on Paul McCartney's official website, his entourage wrote that "Paul is incredibly grateful to all those involved" in the search.
McCartney had used it during the band's stays in Hamburg and then at the Cavern Club in Liverpool (UK), where the Beatles' career took off. It appears on the group's first two albums: Please Please Me and With The Beatles and tracks such as Love Me Do, Twist and Shout, All My Loving, She Loves You, etc. He set it aside in October 1963, when the German company Höfner gave him a second one, which he still uses on stage.
But the bassist took it out of storage in the summer of 1968, for the film accompanying the release of the single Revolution and in January 1969, during the recording sessions for Let It Be (1970). We see it with its characteristic sunburst finish in Get Back, Peter Jackson's documentary released in 2021. McCartney composed the title track. On the morning of January 7, 1969, he was casually playing the instrument in the cold Twickenham studios. With George Harrison yawning at Ringo Starr, who was waiting, he tried to get the film project off the ground. The film was supposed to show the Beatles playing live in the studio, creating their next album. John Lennon arrived late, as he often did.
In 2018, The Lost Bass campaign was launched in the hope of finding this musical treasure, which McCartney had bought for £30 (around €35 at today's rate). The search didn't make any progress for some time.
Nick Wass, a Höfner executive and co-author of the book Hofner. The Complete Violin Bass Story (Centerstream Publications, 2013), worked with journalists Scott and Naomi Jones. On September 2, 2023, Scott Jones published an article in The Sunday Telegraph describing the quest. The article helped unravel this musical cold case.
Amateur investigators "studied over 100 leads" before coming up with a serious clue. The instrument and two amplifiers had been stolen on the night of October 10, 1972, in London's Notting Hill district. One of the technicians working for the musician explained this a few weeks after the article appeared in the Telegraph. McCartney was then preparing his first British and European tour with the band Wings, who were recording their second album, Red Rose Speedway (1973).
"We quickly realised that this information corresponded exactly with a story we had received in an email about the bass being stolen," wrote the investigators. They then discovered what the thief had done with the bass guitar. He had sold it to the owner of a Notting Hill pub. They identified this person and followed the trail.
On Tuesday, February 13, Ruaidhri Guest, a student and film enthusiast, posted a message on X claiming that the instrument had been left to him as part of an inheritance but that he had returned it to its legendary owner. Sharing a photo of the bass guitar on X, he wrote: "To my friends and family I inherited this item which has been returned to Paul McCartney. Share the news." He added: "As of this moment, no further comments at this time."
The website Guitar World recalls that McCartney has four Höfner basses. He has the 1961 model, a bass gifted by Höfner in 1963, another bass presented by Höfner for his performance at the Queen's Jubilee concert in 2012 and a 1967 model he acquired and used at a private concert in 2016.
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.