Paul McCartney is “incredibly grateful” after he was reunited with his beloved bass more than 51 years after it vanished and sparked a global search at the Beatle’s pleading.
The 1961 Höfner 500/1 bass guitar — bought by McCartney as a teen in Hamburg for a mere $37 before the fame — was stolen off the back of a van transporting the band’s equipment on the night of Oct. 10, 1972, in Notting Hill, according to Höfner executives who launched an investigation into the missing instrument.
The bass, which was used by McCartney to record hits like “Twist and Shout,” “All My Loving,” “Love Me Do” and other singles from the Beatle’s first two albums, was sitting in a family’s dusty attic in Hastings — the homeowners unaware that it was McCartney’s reportedly favorite bass and valued at $12.5 million.
The news that the long-lost instrument was found was leaked by the family’s 21-year-old son, Ruaidhri Guest, who posted a pic of himself holding the legendary bass with a cheeky expression on social media.
“To my friends and family, I inherited this item which has been returned to Paul McCartney. Share the news,” he wrote on X Tuesday.
Guest’s mother, Cathy, had read about the campaign to find the Beatle’s missing bass — dubbed the Lost Bass Project and spearheaded by Höfner executive Nick Wass — in September and realized she may have the legendary string instrument sitting in her home.
She contacted Wass, who authenticated the bass and found that it was in fact the bass played by McCartney that went missing five decades prior.
After some fixing up, the long-lost bass was returned to the famous musician.
“Following the launch of last year’s Lost Bass project, Paul’s 1961 Höfner 500/1 bass guitar, which was stolen in 1972, has been returned,” McCartney’s team said in a statement.
“The guitar has been authenticated by Höfner and Paul is incredibly grateful to all those involved.”
So how did the bass belonging to one of the most respected artists of all time end up collecting dust in a family’s attic?
Investigative journalists Scott and Naomi Jones, who were a part of the project, were able to trace its path and even identify its theif — who has not been publically named — thanks to some witness accounts.
The Beatles’ former sound engineers Trevor Jones and Ian Horne told the Lost Bass Project that they had parked the equipment van on the street near Jones’ home and awoke in the morning to the heavy padlock cut and its doors smashed open.
“We knew there was huge padlock on the back doors, but when I got up in the morning and saw the van, with the broken padlock lying in the road, I knew it was bad news. I looked inside and the bass, along with one other guitar and two Vox AC30 amps, had gone,” Horne told the project.
He said they reported the theft to the police and went door to door asking if anyone had seen anything — as they suspected someone who lived nearby was responsible.
With no luck, they had to deliver the bad news to McCartney.
“He told us not to worry, and we kept our jobs. He’s a good man, Paul. I worked for him for six years after the bass went missing,” Horne said.
“But I’ve carried the guilt all my life.”
The team behind the Lost Bass Project found the thief, someone who lived in the neighborhood, and learned that he had sold it to the landlord of a pub in the Notting Hill area.
“This man was an opportunist thief who stole to provide for his wife and three children. In 1972, Notting Hill was a poor place,” Naomi Jones told the Telegraph.
The pub landlord was Ron Guest, the grandfather of Ruaidhri Guest, who passed the bass down to his sons after his death.
It stayed in the family all those years.
“This bass echoes with the sound of some of the most famous and important songs ever written. And then it ended up, like so many unused or unwanted possessions, up in the loft, in a typical house, on an ordinary British street,” Jones added.
Wass said the search for the stolen bass was inspired by Sir Paul McCartney himself — who asked him if he could help him find it when they met a few years back.
The singer-songwriter said he “fell in love” with the particular instrument due to its symmetrical shape which differs from most electric guitars.
“For about £30 ($37), I found this Höfner violin bass,” McCartney said previously, according to The Guardian.
“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.”
But McCartney wasn’t the only one overjoyed at its discovery.
Horne said he never stopped thinking about the bass stolen while he was in charge of the equipment.
“But I’ve never forgotten about the bass, and I’ve carried the guilt all my life,” he told the Telegraph.
“It was stolen on my watch so to help get the bass back today, I’m thrilled. It’s a huge weight off my mind.”