The Beatles Story has been helping The Lost Bass Project in the search for Paul McCartney’s missing bass and today can share an exciting update. The Lost Bass Project has reported:
“We are extremely proud that we played a major part in finding the Lost Bass. It has been a dream since 2018 that it could be done. Despite many telling us that it was lost forever or destroyed, we persisted until it was back where it belonged. We want to thank everyone who helped with the search, all those who sent us leads and ideas and many who just wanted to lend their support to us. Thank you all so very much. Very much indeed! We did it!
This is the news you have all been waiting so patiently for. Finally, after so much searching and investigation, we have Paul’s Lost Bass back with him.
Can you imagine how excited Paul was when he heard the news!
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.
Images provided by The Lost Bass Project
The search began in 2018 but received no really useful leads for some time. It was only when Scott and Naomi Jones joined the search in May 2023 that things really started to move forward.
Following worldwide coverage by the press and media of the search, the first useful leads were received. Acting on these, the team could begin to pinpoint exactly what happened to the stolen bass.
We received over 100 leads and suggestions about the Lost Bass plus over 600 people contacted us offering their help! Wow! We were taken aback at the response.
We received information about the actual theft, that it had been stolen from the back of a 3 ton van during the night of 10th October 1972, in the Notting Hill area of London. This was the breakthrough we needed.
We quickly realised that this information corresponded exactly with a story we had received in an email about the bass being stolen. With some detective work we were able to discover exactly who had stolen the bass,
Further to this we gained information about what the thief did with the bass – they sold it to Ronald Guest the landlord of the Admiral Blake pub in Ladbroke Grove, London.
Looking into old records we established the entire family history from 1972 to the present day. We suspected that the Lost Bass had probably stayed in the same family ever since it was purchased by Ronal Guest.
Images provided by The Lost Bass Project
On September 2nd 2023 we wrote an article for The Sunday Telegraph newspaper outlining the search and who was on the team. We didn’t expect it to go very far, but it caught the imagination of 1000s of people. Within a week it was in newspapers all over the world. We were asked to do numerous interviews and appear on several television news broadcasts.
As a result of the publicity someone living in a terraced house in Hastings on the south coast of England contacted Paul McCartney’s company and then returned the bass to them. The search was over – Paul had his stolen bass back at last!
Images provided by The Lost Bass Project
The pictures you see here on this page are the bass exactly as it was when it was returned to Paul McCartney. It has some damage but will be repaired and made playable again. And yes, the bridge is not where it should be!”
– The Lost Bass Project
It was in late January 1969, when The Beatles were in London recording the ‘Get Back/Let It Be’ sessions, that the 1961 Höfner 500/1 Violin Bass disappeared. This is the bass McCartney purchased and played at the Top Ten Club in Hamburg in 1961, at the Cavern in Liverpool, and on those first Abbey Road recordings. This is the bass heard on ‘Love Me Do’, ‘She Loves You’, and ‘Twist and Shout’. The bass that powered Beatlemania – and shaped the sound of the modern world.
The Lost Bass project was a global search dedicated to tracing the bass and returning it to McCartney – a feat it has now achieved.
The Beatles Story is Liverpool’s leading Beatles’ attraction and showcases a number of exciting pieces of memorabilia for visitors to see along with George Harrison’s first ever guitar. To view this and learn more about the story of the Fab Four lads from Liverpool, book tickets online.
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