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LONDON (AP) — Paul McCartney no longer weeps sweetly over his original bass.
A five-year search by the instrument’s maker, with the help of a husband-and-wife team of journalists, helped reunite the Beatles star with the distinctive 1961 violin-shaped Höfner electric that disappeared half a year ago. century and is estimated to be missing. valued at 10 million pounds ($12.6 million).
McCartney had asked Höfner to help him find the lost instrument that helped launch Beatlemania across the universe, Scott Jones, a journalist who teamed with Höfner executive Nick Wass to locate it, said Friday.
“Paul said to me, ‘Hey, since you’re from Höfner, couldn’t you help me find my bass?’” Wass said. “And that’s what sparked this big hunt. Sitting there, seeing what the missing bass means to Paul, he was determined to solve the mystery.”
McCartney bought the bass for about 30 pounds ($37) in 1961, when the Beatles were developing their skills during a series of residencies in Hamburg, Germany. The instrument was played on the Beatles’ first two albums and appeared on hits such as “Love Me Do,” “Twist and Shout” and “She Loves You.”
“Because I was left-handed, I looked less dumb because I was symmetrical,” McCartney once said. “I got into it. And once I bought it, I fell in love with it.”
It was rumored to have been stolen when the Beatles were recording their last album, “Let it Be,” in 1969. But no one was sure when it disappeared.
What began as a long and winding road for Wass to track down the bass accelerated when Jones casually joined the search after watching McCartney headline the Glastonbury Festival in 2022. The stage lights at one point seemed to illuminate nothing but the sunburst pattern on his bass and Jones wondered if it was the same instrument McCartney had played in the early ’60s.
When he later searched the Internet, he was surprised to discover that the original bass was missing and there was a search.
“I was amazed, amazed,” Jones said. “I think we live in a world where the Beatles could do almost anything and they would get a lot of attention.”
Jones and his wife, Naomi, both journalists and researchers, contacted Wass to spread the message more widely.
After hitting a dead end following a lead about a Who roadie, 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.” Jones said. .
One such email came from sound engineer Ian Horne, who had worked with McCartney’s band Wings, and was the first breakthrough in the search. Horne said her bass guitar had been stolen from the back of his van one night in the Notting Hill section of London in 1972.
Investigators posted the new information on their website in October, adding that Horne said McCartney told him not to worry about the theft and that he would continue working for him for another six years.
“But I’ve carried the guilt my whole life,” Horne said.
After posting that update, a bigger breakup came when they were contacted by a person who said their father had stolen their bass. The man didn’t set out to steal McCartney’s instrument and panicked when he realized what he had, Jones said.
The thief, who was not identified, ended up selling it to Ron Guest, owner of the Admiral Blake pub, for a few pounds and a few beers.
By the time the Joneses were beginning to look for Guest’s relatives, he had already heard about it. Her daughter-in-law contacted McCartney’s studio.
Cathy Guest said the old bass that had been in her attic for years looked like the one they were looking for.
It had passed from Ron Guest to his eldest son, who died in a car accident, and then to a younger son, Haydn Guest, who was married to Cathy and died in 2020.
The instrument was returned to McCartney in December and then took about two months to authenticate.
The project had planned to announce the news, but was upstaged by Cathy Guest’s son, Ruaidhri Guest, a 21-year-old film student who posted photos of the guitar on X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday, writing: “I inherited this article that has been returned to Paul McCartney. He shares the news.” He posted a message Friday saying the family had been inundated with interview requests and that he would eventually tell his story.
The estimated value of the instrument is based on the fact that a Gibson acoustic guitar that Kurt Cobain played on MTV Unplugged sold for $6 million (£4.7 million), Jones said. But it was almost worthless for the last half century.
“The thief couldn’t sell it,” Jones said. “Clearly the Guest family never intended to sell it. “It’s a red flag because the moment you get close, someone says, ‘That’s Paul McCartney’s guitar.'”
Now it’s McCartney again. His official website posted a message announcing his return, saying: “Paul is incredibly grateful to everyone involved.”