{"id":120549,"date":"2025-09-05T10:59:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T10:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/120549\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T10:59:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T10:59:08","slug":"paul-mccartneys-stolen-bass-saga-is-being-turned-into-a-documentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/120549\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul McCartney’s stolen bass saga is being turned into a documentary"},"content":{"rendered":"

The story of Paul McCartney<\/a>\u2018s long-lost bass guitar is set to be told in an upcoming documentary.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0Inside \u2018Now And Then\u2019: With a little help from AI, The Beatles live again<\/a><\/p>\n

The H\u00f6fner 500\/1 bass guitar \u2013 which has been dubbed the most important bass in history for its role in recording numerous Beatles<\/a>\u00a0hits \u2013\u00a0was stolen from the musician in 1972, only to be returned to him last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The H\u00f6fner bass was the first bass the Beatles star ever bought. He had purchased it in 1961 for \u00a330 ($38) in Hamburg, Germany. McCartney and longtime fans of The Beatles had attempted numerous times to recover the stolen instrument over the course of its 50-plus year absence \u2013 including the\u00a0Lost Bass campaign, which began in 2018 but only began to make progress in 2023<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, Variety<\/a> is reporting that the story of the bass\u2019 decades-long journey back to Macca is due to be told through an upcoming feature-length documentary directed by Arthur Cary (Surviving 9\/11, The Last Survivors).<\/p>\n

The documentary is being titled The Beatle and the Bass, and has yet to receive a release date. McCartney himself has been confirmed to be part of the documentary, and has filmed interviews for the feature.<\/p>\n

Macca said in a statement, per Variety: \u201cI think anything that\u2019s nicked, you want back, especially if it has sentimental value. It just went off into the universe and it left us thinking, where did it go? There must be an answer\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

The documentary \u2013 which will explore the mystery behind its theft and eventual return<\/a> \u2013 will also include exclusive interviews with people with a personal connection to the historic bass guitar and McCartney. Among the people set to appear in the documentary are Paul\u2019s brother Mike, their friend Klaus Voormann who witnessed the birth of the Beatles, Elvis Costello<\/a>, journalists and fans who led the Loss Bass recovery project<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The bass guitar was originally believed to have disappeared in January 1969 when The Beatles were recording the \u2018Get Back\/Let It Be\u2019<\/a> sessions. However, during investigations by the Lost Bass Project team, they discovered that it was instead stolen three years later. The now-recovered H\u00f6fner 500\/1 Violin Bass is the same one that can be heard on classic hits including \u2018Love Me Do\u2019, \u2018She Loves You\u2019, and \u2018Twist and Shout\u2019.<\/p>\n

Following the bass\u2019 recovery last year, the following statement was issued on McCartney\u2019s website: \u201cFollowing the launch of [2023\u2019s] Lost Bass project, Paul\u2019s 1961 H\u00f6fner 500\/1 bass guitar, which was stolen in 1972, has been returned. The guitar has been authenticated by H\u00f6fner and Paul is incredibly grateful to all those involved.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The story of Paul McCartney\u2018s long-lost bass guitar is set to be told in an upcoming documentary. READ…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,136,1771],"class_list":["post-120549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-rock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}