![]() Sadly, says Paul, the gold Höfner was “one of a few instruments stolen from us at the time”.īy his early 20s, Paul had become proficient on a number of instruments. Selmer, Höfner’s UK distributor, presented him with a gold-plated 500/1 in March 1964, when he was using a new Vox 100-watt bass amp with his T-60 speaker enclosure – his standard setup through to the end of 1965. ![]() It was essentially the same bass, but the centrally located pickup was now in the bridge position. In late 1963, Paul then picked up a newer version of the Höfner 500/1. Paul’s earliest bass amp was a Truvoice, but by the time of The Beatles’ EMI recording auditions in the summer of 1962, he’d switched to Vox amplification – a 60-watt T-60 piggyback bass amp with one 12-inch and one 15-inch speaker. It’s still basically original it’s still the same instrument.” We’ve done a little bit of work on it – more on the bridge and stuff, because of the tuning problems – but not a lot. Its main problem is in the inaccuracy of the tuning when you get up the neck a bit. I like it a lot – you play a lot faster, very easily. Obviously, my big influence was bass, but John and George had the guitars and, even though they weren’t as good as, say, Fenders or Gibsons, they had a great, distinctive sound. “I think that Höfner was one of the first companies with any decent instruments, not only the Violin Bass, but also their guitars. But the violin shape was symmetrical, so it didn’t look quite as stupid as some of the others did – for instance, when their cutaways were on the upside. Every guitar I ever used had to be right-handed, because back then, they didn’t make special left-handers, so I used to turn them upside down. “To tell you the truth, it was because I was left-handed. McCartney bought his first Höfner – a violin-shaped hollowbody instrument in a shaded brown finish, with pickups in the neck and middle positions and a 30-inch, short scale length – on one of The Beatles’ early trips to Hamburg. ![]() Originally a rhythm guitarist and occasional pianist, Paul assumed the role of bassist when Stuart Sutcliffe quit The Beatles in mid 1961 to pursue an art career. The one he now uses is the same one from the last Beatles tour, with the original setlist still Sellotaped to the side! He is, of course, the man synonymous with the Höfner 500/1 Violin Bass and it was his recent songwriting collaborator, Elvis Costello, who encouraged Macca to bring his trademark instrument out of retirement when they were working on Costello’s Spike album. Yet McCartney’s contributions to the bass guitar – and of course, popular music – are truly outstanding. Often! Probably every time I’ve done a bass part.” A few years ago, when asked if he ever had doubts about his playing, Macca replied: “Definitely. It was a title bestowed on him almost habitually throughout the 60s and 70s… but in the 90s? McCartney typically shies away from such tributes. ![]() In 1991, exactly 30 years after becoming a bass player through necessity, Paul McCartney was honoured with Rolling Stone magazine’s Best Bassist Of The Year award. This interview was originally published in our September 1993 issue.
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