London: A guitar knowledgeable and two journalists have launched a worldwide hunt for a lacking bass guitar owned by Paul McCartney, bidding to resolve what they model “the greatest mystery in rock and roll”.

The trio of lifelong Beatles followers are trying to find McCartney’s unique Höfner bass — final seen in London in 1969 — to be able to reunite the instrument with the previous Fab Four frontman.

McCartney performed the instrument all through the Nineteen Sixties, together with at Hamburg’s Top Ten Club, on the Cavern Club in Liverpool and on early Beatles recordings at London’s Abbey Road studios.

“This is the search for the most important bass in history — Paul McCartney’s original Höfner,” the search get together says on a web site — thelostbass.com — newly-created for the endeavour.

“This is the bass you hear on Love Me Do, She Loves You, and Twist and Shout. The bass that powered Beatlemania — and shaped the sound of the modern world.”

McCartney purchased the left-handed Höfner 500/1 Violin Bass for round £30 — about £550 ($585) right this moment— in Hamburg in 1961, throughout The Beatles’ four-month residency on the Top Ten Club.

“For about £30, I found this Höfner violin bass,” mentioned McCarney, 81. “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.”

It disappeared with no hint almost eight years later in January 1969 when the band had been recording the Get Back/Let It Be classes in central London.

By then its look was distinctive — after being overhauled in 1964, together with with an entire respray in a three-part darkish sunburst polyurethane end — and it had turn into McCartney’s back-up bass.

Nick Wass, a semi-retired former advertising and marketing supervisor and electrical guitar developer for Höfner who co-wrote the definitive guide on the Höfner 500/1 Violin Bass, is spearheading the search.

“It was played in Hamburg, at The Cavern Club, at Abbey Road. Isn’t that enough alone to get this bass back?” he added.

“I know, because I talked with him about it, that Paul would be so happy — thrilled — if this bass could get back to him.”

Wass is joined by journalist husband and spouse workforce Scott and Naomi Jones.

Wass informed the BBC that the well-known Beatle requested him concerning the guitar throughout a latest dialog — and that’s how the marketing campaign to seek out it started. “For most people, they will remember it… it’s the bass that made the Beatles,” Wass mentioned.

Scott grew to become curious concerning the guitar’s destiny after watching McCartney’s 2022 headline set at Glastonbury and approached Höfner — solely to find they had been already having conversations about monitoring it down after being urged to by their well-known consumer.

Appealing for contemporary recommendations on its whereabouts, they insist their mission is “a search, not an investigation”, noting all info will likely be handled confidentially.

“With a little help from our friends — from fans and musicians to collectors and music shops — we can get the bass back to where it once belonged,” the trio said on the web site.

“Paul McCartney has given us so much over the last 62 years. The Lost Bass project is our chance to give something back.”

The venture’s public attraction has been dwell for lower than 48 hours however the workforce has already obtained a whole bunch of latest leads — together with two of explicit curiosity that are being adopted up on.

The trio mentioned different beforehand misplaced guitars have been discovered.

John Lennon’s Gibson J-160E — which he used to write down I Want To Hold Your Hand — disappeared throughout The Beatles’ Christmas Show in 1963.

It resurfaced half a century later, after which offered at public sale for $2.4 million.