 1961: Hofner
500/1 3/4 scale "violin" bass: By the time The Beatles
returned
to Hamburg to play an engagement at the Top Ten Club in April 1961,
McCartney
had reluctantly assumed bass duty. Stuart Sutcliffe had decided
to
leave the band -- discouraged by his poor musicianship but also deeply
in love with a German lass, Astrid Kirchherr -- and to return to his
art
studies.
And stand-in bassist Chas Newby had gone back to school.
The
prevalent theme among the remaining Beatles was "Don't look at
me."
"Nobody wants to play bass, or nobody did in those days," recalls
McCartney
in Many Years From Now (Barry Miles). "Bass was the
thing
that the fat boys got lumbered with and were asked to stand at the back
and play . . . So I definitely didn't want to do it but Stuart left,
and
I got lumbered with it. Later I was quite happy . . . " There are
reports
but no photos of McCartney playing Sutcliffe's Hofner President bass --
without re-stringing! -- and apparently the re-worked Rosetti had
finally
disintegrated at this point, so McCartney found himself in Hamburg's
Steinway
Musichaus one day. "I remember going along there, and there was
this
bass which was quite cheap. I couldn't afford a Fender.
Fenders
even then seemed to be about £100. All I could really
afford
was about £30 . . . so for about £30 I found this Hofner
violin
bass. And to me it seemed like, because I was left-handed, it
looked
less daft because it was symmetrical. Didn't look as bad as a
cutaway
which was the wrong way. So I got into that." As
left-handed
instruments were rarely seen hanging on shop walls at that time, some
researchers
contend McCartney merely saw a right-handed model and ordered a
lefty.
Whatever the case, as with Lennon and his Rickenbacker 325, McCartney
soon
would become forever associated with this distinctive model. He
used
this bass on stage and in the studio through With The Beatles,
at which point Hofner gave him a new, updated model. So in '64,
he
had this first bass refinished in polyester sunburst by Sound City of
London
and had new pickups and pots installed. After that it served as a
backup on the '64 tours but in general took a back seat to its newer
brother.
It appeared again in late '68, minus its pickguard, for the
"Revolution"
video from the David Frost show, and it's last seen in footage from
Twickenham
Studios, where the Beatles were filming "Let It Be." Soon
afterward,
it was stolen, most likely from a closet at EMI's Abbey Road studio,
along
with Harrison's Gretsch Tennessean and second Ric 360-12. Note to whoever has this instrument: It's not like he hasn't given you enough. It's never too late to do the right thing. Give it back. |
