(CNN) – Paul McCartney's iconic lost guitar has been reunited with its owner more than 50 years after it was stolen.
McCartney played the legendary Höfner bass during the recording of the Beatles' first two albums, which included legendary hits such as “Twist and Shout” and “Love Me Do”, and then used it as a backup bass during the remainder of his time with the Beatles. bass band.
He continued to play it after the Beatles broke up until it was stolen from the back of a van in Notting Hill, London, in 1972.
The guitar was missing until the Lost Bass Project, led by Höfner managing director Nick Wass and investigative journalists Scott and Naomi Jones, examined more than 100 tracks and located them in Hastings, a city on the south coast of England.
“The Pursuit of Bass was not just for Paul McCartney, but for all fans,” Wass told CNN on Friday. “So we could all see that (…) bass that started Beatlemania.”
Their search was widely publicized, and those responsible explained the guitar's special features in detail, prompting the family that owned it to “show up with pictures of the bass in their attic and say, 'Is this that one?'” Scott Jones told CNN on Thursday.
According to a statement on his website, McCartney is “incredibly grateful to everyone involved” for returning the bass to him and confirmed that it is the same guitar he played so often in the '60s.
Wass first started the Lost Bass Project in 2018 after a conversation with McCartney himself, he told CNN on Friday, but it wasn't until Scott and Naomi Jones joined the search after seeing McCartney at Glastonbury that “useful leads came.” “.
Following a media appeal, the breakthrough came in October 2023, when the team received a tip-off from two McCartney sound engineers who had parked the van in the Ladbroke Grove area of Notting Hill while the former Beatle was recording an album nearby with his new band , Wings.
This allowed them to find out exactly when and where the guitar had been stolen, dispelling previous rumors that it had disappeared in 1969, shortly before the Beatles' final rooftop concert.
The initially ignored track that made it possible to restore Paul McCartney's bass
The location also matched an email Wass received earlier this year, which he initially “ignored” because it “didn't make much sense,” he said.
Wass added that he then asked for more information and the sender of the email told him that his father had stolen the bass and taken it to Ronald Guest, the owner of the nearby Admiral Blake Pub.
Meanwhile, Naomi Jones has combed through the archives to verify these addresses and confirm that the story holds up.
“Evidence along the road suggests the thief didn’t know what he was trying to steal that night,” Scott Jones said. “I think to him it was just a guitar and he later discovered it was Paul McCartney’s guitar.”
The thief asked Guest to “effectively hide the guitar from him,” Jones continued, and the team turned their attention to the pub, “began searching records of births, marriages and deaths” and figuring out “where the low point lies within the Guest family.” .
Although the guitar is slightly damaged and needs some repairs before it can be played again, professionals can restore it, according to the Lost Bass Project.
“This guitar is priceless,” Wass said. “In a way it has no value except to Paul McCartney and all the Beatles fans in the world… it's priceless.”