TV Pick of the Week: McCartney: The Hunt for the Lost Bass
McCartney: The Hunt for the Lost Bass BBC iPlayer, review by Yvette Huddleston
This charming documentary unpicks one of the music world’s great long-running mysteries. Over fifty years ago a Höfner bass guitar, which Paul McCartney bought as a teenager in Hamburg in 1961 in the early days of the Beatles, went missing.
Having purchased the instrument for the equivalent of about £30 when the Beatles were on tour in Germany, McCartney became very attached to it and its distinctive sound appeared on many of the iconic early hits of the band. McCartney liked the bass so much that he bought another one a couple of years later in 1963.
The original disappeared from the back of a van in the early 1970s parked by roadies somewhere in west London when McCartney was on tour with his new group Wings. It had never been seen since. At the time, perhaps because he had another one, McCartney admits he was annoyed and upset but the 1963 bass was perfectly able to fill the gap. The mystery, however, seized the imagination of fans who decided to set out on a mission to see the bass returned to its rightful place in music history.
Spearheading the campaign was a former employee of the Höfner instrument makers Nick Wass, a Brit living in Germany, who was determined to track down the bass, now estimated to worth around £10 million, and solve the mystery surrounding its disappearance. He recruited others to help in the search including husband and wife journalists Naomi and Scott Jones. Their investigations picked up various leads including an approach from paramedic and ambulance service worker Steve Glenister who they initially get one piece of useful information from but who it eventually transpires really holds the key to the whole mystery.
The documentary features interviews with McCartney himself, his brother Mike, German artist, musician and producer Klaus Voorman, who has been friends with McCartney since they were both teenagers and the Beatles’ first visit to Germany, fellow musician Elvis Costello, roadies, journalists and fans. It is engaging viewing and director Arthur Cary manages to balance the detective work elements with the bigger story within the narrative of the cultural significance of the bass. Some of the most interesting parts are when McCartney talks about its sound, how he worked with it and its influence on his playing, and even composing, style. And the scene in which the musician and the instrument are finally reunited after five decades apart is very sweet and quite moving.