If he marked the history of music forever, Paul McCartney, 81 years old, still has one regret: having lost his very first bass guitar on the road, a 500/1 model from Höfner. Officially disappearing in 1969, when the Beatles broke up, the legendary instrument became a sort of pop Holy Grail.
Until September 2 and the launch of operation The Lost Bass intended to collect any information allowing the location of the famous instrument using a website, a hashtag #tracingthebass (“in search of the bass”) and an international press campaign.
Why this initiative, fifty-four years after the fact? Nick Wass, advisor and former marketing director of the German luthier Höfner says: “A few years ago, I went to Paul’s studio in Sussex, England, to work on his instruments. He asked me, “You don’t know where my first bass went?” I felt how sentimental it was for him. So I started researching – but the instrument could be anywhere in the world… I teamed up with Scott and Naomi Jones [ex-journalistes anglais, notamment pour la BBC], who have many contacts. And There you go. »
Its curves evoke a violin
If the multi-instrumentalist (he also played the piano) has never forgotten his Höfner 500/1, it is because it represents a whole part of his life, and not the least important part. At the very beginning of the Beatles, Paul McCartney was the guitarist, while a certain Stuart Sutcliffe played bass. When he left the group in 1961, Paul McCartney replaced him and recovered his instrument.
But, during a stay with his three acolytes in Hamburg, Germany, he found a semi-acoustic brunette shade (the model also exists in blonde), surprisingly light. Its symmetrical curves evoke a violin and allow a left-handed person like Paul to be able to play, explains Nick Wass.
The little German also had the merit of being affordable (the equivalent of 30 pounds sterling at the time), unlike the American ones, which were heavy and expensive. “As soon as I bought it, I fell in love with it,” remembers Paul McCartney in The Beatles. The day-to-day history of the group (Out of Collection, 2000), by Barry Miles. From 1961 to 1963, the artist and his bass forged the sound, but also the legend of the Beatles: with it, he recorded Please Please Me And With the Beatles (1963), the group’s first two albums, and compose She Loves You And Love Me Do, where we clearly hear its dull timbre, “like the sound of a fist banging on an old cupboard”, describes Nick Wass.
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