Paul McCartney - History of his Guitars & Basses

hi guys this is Ramon Goose and welcome to the guitar show Paul McCartney was born on the 18th of June 1942 in Liverpool Paul's father was a trumpet player and pianist who led a jazz band in the 1920s his father encouraged him to play the piano and take up lessons but Paul preferred to learn by year at age 11 Paul joined the choir at sin Barnabas church in Moseley Hill for his 14th birthday he received a nickel-plated trumpet from his father however due to be an influence by the rock and roll that he heard on Radio Luxembourg Paul decided that he wanted to be able to sing while playing so he traded his trumpet for his first guitar this was a six string Zenith model seventeen it was an arch top non cutaway acoustic with F holes the Zenith brand was distributed in the UK by Busey and hogs these guitars were made in Germany and also Czechoslovakia the guitar was actually made by framers but rebranded in the UK as Zenith at the time for Zenith guitar retailed for 14 guineas and he was able to trade the trumpet in for this guitar initially he found it difficult to play the guitar right-handed but after seeing a poster which advertised a Slim Whitman concert he realized that Whitman played left-handed and he decided to reverse the order of strings on his MF guitar Paul wrote his first song I lost my little girl on this guitar and also composed a tune which would become when I'm 64 although later that was played on the piano the first song that Paul played in public was the song long tall Sally by Little Richard this was at Butlins holiday camp talent competition at the age of 15 on the 6th of July 1957 Paul met John Lennon and his band The Quarrymen at the sin Peters church hall fate in Wilton to quote Paul McCartney I changed the strings around I never could change the nut I wasn't a tech the sixth string always had a fat hole where the first strings would have to go we chopped a little bit off a match stick that in there and that would lift the nut enough and then you had to hollow out a bit of the nut to get the bass string in because that kept slipping out so you did your own technical work high precision very do it yourself affair but it eventually worked and would hold all the strings and that was the main thing if he clouded it it would just come off later Paul mounted a little pickup near the bridge and eventually removed the pickguard he used his guitar until the first Beatles trip to Hamburg this guitar apparently still hangs in pool studio and you can see it being pulled down for the anthology video to play a bit of twenty flight Rock this is a photo of a young pool with a famous five to one parlor guitar it can be seen in some early photos and it apparently belonged to Paul's father it was also seen in this photo in 1962 which was a songwriting session at 4th Lynn Road in January 1959 John Lennon george harrison and paul mccartney build themselves as a journey and the moon dogs and were playing rock n roll whenever they could find a drummer Lennon's arts girlfriend Stuart Sutcliffe joined in January 1960 when they changed their name to the Beatles in May 1960 they changed their name to the silver Beatles the silver Beatles consisted of McCartney on drums Lennon and Harrison on guitars and Sutcliffe on bass and on a brief tour of Scotland Paul McCartney actually changed his name to Paul Rahman which is the same name as me Stu Sutcliffe was the band's bass player and upon joining the quarryman on January the 21st 1960 Sutcliffe barely knew how to play a bass there were few electric basses available in Liverpool around this time but Sutcliffe managed to find a Hoffner model 505 which appeared in the summer catalog three to eight which was a blonde model all three three three which was a brunette model Sutcliffe space was made in 1959 it was a hollow body which was seventeen and a quarter inches wide and two and a half inches deep with a triple bound spruce top to f-holes a small Hoffner nickel and a maple back and sides it had a vote with finger board with 21 frets and also notice here in the photo there's a zero fret it had a three ply nut to an aside tunas and horizontal Hoffner logo with a pearl flower design inlaid on the headstock there were two black bar shaped single coil pickups and a rectangular control plate with two volume knobs and three turn switches it had an adjustable wooden bridge a trapeze tailpiece and a floating Picard Sutcliff purchased the bass a Frank hisses music store on January 21st 1960 although pool was one of the band's original guitar players he would often fill in on various other instruments when it was needed along with playing drums and piano McCartney would often fill in on base when Sutcliffe did a no-show he would take so cliffs Hoffner 505 bass and play it upside down to quote Paul so I used to play huge bass upside down he used to let me use it a little bit if he didn't come in one night to the club I've been playing piano on stage quite good for me gave me a lot of piano practice couldn't really play by I learn too so I was quite glad to get back into the front line when the band returned back to Liverpool from Hamburg Paul was the obvious choice to replace through on bass after Paul's 18th birthday he decided that it was time to buy a new guitar on June the 30th 1960 he purchased over 30 solid seven six string electric guitar from hessy's in Liverpool this guitar featured a semi hollow double cutaway body without F holes three on a side tuners a rosewood fingerboard with dot inlays and a trapeze tailpiece it was fitted with an Eggman Royal pp to to pick up white pickguard assembly that had two black tone and two black volume knobs the finish of the guitar was sunburst with a solid 7 deco on the lower body McCartney would eventually remove the edgemon pickguard assembly and install a single Hoffner 503 pick up and also fit the guitar was the three piano strings so that he could play it like a bass guitar the solid 7 was made by the Eggman company in the Netherlands and it was distributed in the UK by Rosetti it cost currently 21 pounds McCartney used it throughout the spring of 1961 for numerous Beatles performances in an around Liverpool when the Beatles made their second trip to Hamburg McCartney decided to switch to playing piano his roses guitar was starting to fall apart probably due to the abnormal stress is placed on the guitar because of those heavy bass strings Sutcliff had to return to playing bass for the group but Sir bass player was no longer needed so McCartney switched to playing piano the Rosetti guitar has started to fall apart when this happened as McCartney explains I dropped it one day he recalled in a 1964 interview it was a complete write-off but I didn't think it was worth repairing so all of us George Stu Pete and John especially John had a great time smashing it to bits by jumping up and down on it a bit mad I suppose but we had to get rid of our pent-up energy sometimes and it seemed the obvious thing to do at the time I couldn't afford to buy a new guitar so I became the official piano player no I didn't know how to play I knew a few chords and the rest of the boys decided that they needed a pianist in the group so for a few weeks I ruined the top 10 club piano in Hamburg so cliffs announcement that he will be leaving his role as bass player of the Beatles spurred McCartney to look for a real bass guitar it was in the Steinway shop in the centre of Hamburg that McCartney found his german-made Hoffner 501 bass nicknamed the violin beta for its body shape the price of the bass was 287 Deutsche marks McCartney recalls I couldn't afford a fender fenders even then seemed to be about a hundred pounds all I could really afford was about 30 pounds I found this - a violin bass and to me it seemed like because I was left-handed it looked less tough because it was symmetrical I got into that that became my main base McCartney custom-ordered dis bass guitar it could well be that this was the first left-handed base that Hoffner ever built the first half and a 501 base that McCartney owned was a hollow bodied with a solid spruce carved top and a one-piece flat back body it was built with a three-piece maple neck and an unbound rosewood fingerboard with in leis and in 22 frets it had a shorter 30-inch scale the headstock had a vertical Hoffman logo and it was fitted with two on the side nickel plated rugby ball tuners the base was equipped with two Hoffner nickel plated diamond logo pickups in forward positions the rectangle control panel had two volume knobs and three switches for rhythm solo bass on and treble on there was an adjustable wood bridge and a nickel-plated trapeze tailpiece and a floating white pearl pickguard the first Hoffner Beatle bass that McCartney used was nicknamed the cavern bass as can be heard on the early Beatles recording the sound of the Hoffner is very round and rich the mid-range tone is quite prominent and due to the fact that it's got a hollow body it can be very resonant and bass heavy in the upper registers McCartney tended to play the Hoffner with the treble switch off and the bass switch on the rhythm or solo switch usually was selected to rhythm which meant that only the neck pickup would have been activated this setting produces a powerful bass tone when McCartney received an updated version of his Hoffner bass in 1963 he decided to have his original bass refinished in polyester sunburst by Sound City of London and had new pickups and pots installed after this it served as a backup on the 1964 tours but in general it took a backseat to the updated new model it then appeared again in late 1968 - is pickguard for the revolution video from the David Frost show and it's last seen in footage from tweakin in studios where the Beatles were filming at let it be soon afterwards it was stolen most likely from a closet at EMI Abbey Road studio along with Harrison's George Tennessean and a second Rickenbacker McCartney played his new 501 violin bass on the UK TV show Ready Steady Go I ordered another Hoffner bass because it was the only left-handed bass available and I thought I'd better have a spare the main difference between McCartney's 1963 Hoffner 501 violin bass and his original Hoffner bass was the placement of the pickups and also the style of the Hoffner logo the pickups were mounted further apart with one place close to the bridge and one near the neck the second base had to an aside open back strip tuners an unbound dot inlaid rosewood fingerboard with a zero fret and a three ply white black Wyatt nut the single volume and tone controls with the three flick action switches mented to the rectangular pearloid plate was similar to his first Hoffner and the arched top laminated spruce top an arched two-piece maple back were finished in Hosmer's Brown brunette sunburst finish the bridge and tail piece were also the same as the original base as was the pearloid picard despite having new routes to accommodate the new pickup placements the second Hoffner 500 base would become McCartney's main instrument of choice it's also the base which people would identify him most with from 63 he used it on almost all of the rest of the Beatles and live performances and also television appearances it also featured on many of the Beatles recordings until the beatles broke up in 1966 he had removed the pit guard and the last time it saw action with the Beatles was on the Apple rooftop sessions McCartney had placed a basement sticker from his speaker cabinet on the front of the bass McCartney resurrected this bass Elvis Costello's request for flowers in the dirt and for later tours comparing it to Charlie Chaplin's cane he said you just expect to see it the base today still has to set this from the 1966 tools taped onto it and it reads rock and roll she's a woman if I needed tripper babies in black I feel fine yesterday wannabe nowhere paperback and long tall McCartney would sometimes use a foam meat on his Hoffner bass and he would also use a flat wound strings although when a journalist once asked him what strings he used McCarney replied the shiny ones Hoffner himself say that paul mccartney owns a total of five Hoffner bases these would include his 1963 Hoffner bass that he used in the beatles a backup 501 a jubilee version and two anniversary cabin bases in 1964 mccartney acquired a new guitar an acoustic flattop Texan Ft 79n he acquired his new guitar at Manny's in New York City Paul uses guitar for writing and for working in the studio also he used it for the live performances of the song yesterday the Epiphone Texan was in fact right-handed however he played it upside down and strung it for a left-handed player the Epiphone Texan was similar to Gibson's Jay 45 acoustic and in fact both models were made at Gibson's Kalamazoo Factory the guitar serial number was one nine four nine five nine the Texan guitar retailed in the USA in 1964 for the value of a hundred and seventy-five dollars in December 1964 whilst rehearsing for a Christmas beetle show at the London Hammersmith Odeon McCartney bought an epiphone casino guitar in a similar fashion to his texting guitar he also restrung this right-handed guitar for a left-handed player Cantonese casino was built with a 16 inch laminate maple and birch body finished in Sambas with white banding on the front and back the guitar had a one-piece mahogany neck with a bound rosewood fingerboard McCartney's es 230 TD had an early style Gibson design headstock rather than Epiphone later hourglass shaped headstock the guitar featured two p90 pickups with nickel-plated doggy covers it came with a nickel ABR bridge and nylon bridge saddles also it featured a licensed Bigsby vibrato the serial number was eight four zero seven five and it was shipped on November the 1st 1962 McCartney bought the casino on the advice of blues musician John Mayall we kind of used the casino extensively in the studio with Beatles and throughout his solo career in 1997 he stated in an interview if I had to choose one electric guitar it would be that guy he bought the guitar for a hundred and sixty four guineas in August 1965 whilst the Beatles were relaxing from their US tour and also just having met the hero Elvis Presley McCartney was visited by Rickenbacker's Francis Hall and his son John that presented him with the Rickenbacker for double zero one Essbase he'd actually seen this base a year earlier in New York when also being visited by Rickenbacker but unfortunately it was a right-handed base a McCartney passed up on the opportunity to own it McCartney recalls receiving this new bass I just remember Rickenbacker giving it to me and they invited us down to the factory which I never made I never got down there it was a little bit out of La I think but I like the instrument a lot this was one of the first left-handed bases of the company had produced it was a through neck solid body electric bass it had a single neck position toast to pickup plus a Rickenbacker horseshoe pickup in the bridge position it came wired in mono with two volume and tone controls and a 3-way toggle switch it also featured Rickenbacker's combination bridge and tailpiece and two aside grover journey picks the neck was made of maple and the fingerboard which had dot inlays was made of rosewood the base was finished in Rickenbacker's a fire glow color its serial number is D 823 indicating a date of manufacture of January 1964 at the time in the UK this base would have cost a hundred and seventy five guineas Harrison recalls its first use on think for yourself on 8th of November 1965 it served as a backup for live dates in late 65 and for the 66 tours but in terms of recording by the time the band made paperback writer and rain in the summer of 66 the Rickenbacker had become McCartney's base of choice he used it on literally all of revolver and late that year for Penny Lane and strawberry fields forever and also for the rest of the sergeant pepper's sessions for the release of their album McCartney gave the bass a psychedelic paint job just as Harrison and Lennon had done to their guitars he used it that way on record and the videos and until late 1968 although McCartney resurrected his hotness for let it be he returned to the rig afterwards but now it was sanded back to the original natural finish he has used his space extensively within his solo career and in 1975 he shipped it back to Rickenbacker to get the pickup replaced and a full set up on the whole guitar on the 28th of March 1967 pictures were taken of McCartney working on guitar solos for good morning good morning and being for the benefit of mr. kite as well as using his epiphone casino for these solos he also was pictured with a Fender Squier guitar this is of course a single pickup version of the Telecaster as per usual Paul McCartney had restrung this guitar to be played by a left-hander whether or not Paul McCartney still has this guitar is unknown in 1968 McCartney acquired a Martin d-28 acoustic guitar the guitar was used on the White Album sessions and it's also the one that featured on the song Blackbird its serial number 222 3757 identifies it as a 1967 model in this photo here John and Paul can be seen in ricochet in India working on a song intended for the forthcoming White Album and you can clearly see Paul playing his Martin d-28 acoustic whilst in the recording studio for the White Album sessions McCartney can be seen here playing a new left-handed Fender Jazz Bass whilst four acoustic work he was using his Martin d-28 flattop McCartney's left-handed jazz bass had a three color sunburst finish tortoiseshell pickguard with a bound rosewood fingerboard and block inlays it was fitted with two standard jazz bass pickups and wide with a three knob control layout all mounted with the upper jack on the chrome plate although a lot of bass players tended to remove the chromed pickup and bridge covers from the fender bases we currently played his jazz bass with both covers left in place McCartney used his jazz bass on five tracks including ear blues glass onion one my guitar gently weeps Sun King and mean mr. mustard it's more than likely that McCartney still owns his bass for wings most likely Paul McCartney used his Rickenbacker for all the recordings and most of the live work but here you can see an interesting bass that he picked up during his time with wings this is a K jazz special and it is seen featured in the Junior Farms video from the early seventies it can also be seen in the video for the song evany and ivory as well as being on the cover of the single jet he did use his bass on occasions for the Band on the Run tour with the wings it features a 3d raised Chevron logo on the crown and is designed in the classic art deco style of the 1950's the headstock is extra-large the jazz special base had a very limited production of less than 500 made worldwide and came in two different finishes it has a blade design K pick up and the pick guard is white with gold surrounded flake it features separate volume and tone controls trapeze tailpiece and a rosewood bridge here is Paul McCartney in their video for Helen Wills buy the wings in 1973 you can see here he's playing in the MPEG Dan Armstrong plexi in this video he actually owned the only left hand instrument ever produced of this model this next instrument is in 1970s as a Metis heart hole base Tony tomato's handmade his electric guitars for many years mostly for UK musicians such as Ronnie Lane and Greg Lake and Paul McCartney you can see McCartney playing this bass on the wings video again and again and again released in 1979 this next instrument is a BB 1200 s by Yamaha we currently acquired this bass in 1978 this was the left handed model that was given to him by Yamaha it featured a unique split to pick up for the D and g strings the pickup is close to the neck and for the E and a strings the pickup is close to the bridge it had a through neck design and at the time was the top-of-the-line model McCartney used the Yamaha bass on the seventh and final studio album by the wings called back to the egg released in 1979 he also used it live when he did the concerts for Kampuchea as well as on the video good night tonight okay let's talk about McCartney's five string whale bass let's hear from McCartney himself he says we had these jams in dockland in London that turned into the Russian album and Trevor Horn showed up one time I knew him as a producer but he told me he used to be a bass player in a ballroom type show band before he was in Buggles so he showed up and he had a well a five string bass I said oh that's cool no be great so I got one based on his recommendation and I really liked it my favorite thing I've done recently on it was the new Beatles record we've made free like a bird which is really cool McCartney stated himself that his wife Linda bought him this bass for his birthday McCartney talks about using the well to record the song free as a bird I played the well and what I liked was I played very very normal bass really out of the way because I didn't want to feature there are one or two moments where I break a little bit loose but mostly I tried to anchor the track there's one lovely moment when it modulates to C so he was able to use the low C of the five string and that's it the only time I used the low one which I liked rather than just basing out and being low low low I play normal bass and then there's his low C and the song takes off it actually takes off anyway because a lot of harmonies come in and stuff but it's a real cool moment that I'm proud of that's my well moment Paul has also stated that his world bass was quite heavy McCartney use of space in the studio as well on his album flowers in the dirt which was released in June 1989 the album flowers in the dirt featured several songs he co-wrote with Elvis Costello it was Elvis Costello that actually got McCartney to stop using the wild bass and returned to his original Beatles base which was the Hoffner bass Costello recounts that when he first began collaborating with Paul McCartney the former Beatle favored a super hi-tech custom bass that his wife Linda had given him for Christmas it had muster Costello's horror five strings Costello inquired about the Hoffner trying not to sound too much like the Beatle geek that all of us would be in that moment McCartney then put it out of storage and has been using it as his main instrument ever since this 1957 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop was a gift to him from his wife Linda she bought it at California guitar in Santa Barbara around 1980 you can see him playing it on the video for Once Upon a long ago from 1987 and this was a guitar that he often toured with in this photo you can see McCartney with his 1960 Gibson Les Paul Standard guitar originally it was owned by schoolteacher in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania he then sold it to her guitar dealer who then offered it to Paul McCartney and currently told him he was interested in this left handed verse since he already had a gold top that Linda had given to him for his birthday the guitar was then offered to Rick Nielsen of cheap trick Rick Nielsen then decided to sell it - groans guitars on consignment it was through grounds in which the 1960 left handed verse was sold by Rick Nielsen to Paul McCartney apparently it was sold for $9,000 they have only been in for left handed Gibson Les Paul's made between 1958 and 1960 this next guitar is McCartney's crowd goes wild Les Paul produced for use during the International Day of happiness concerts and featured prominently on the album memory almost full it has remained a popular fixture in McCartney's lineup of guitars featuring a cartoon crowd of all nations and religions joining together in celebration here you can see McCartney using this guitar live in 2016 the artwork was hand-painted by Rosie Brooks in this photo you can see an upright bass which was originally owned by Elvis Presley's bass player Bill Black it was bought by Paul's wife Linda in the late 1970s and it can be seen in the video clip - McCartney's song babies request in 1995 he played it on real love the last new Beatles record black had sold his base around 1962 to Michael each of the Memphis boys and it remained in leaches attic until sometime in the late 1970s okay guys thanks for watching this video don't forget to Like share and subscribe this is Roman Goose signing out

Channel: The Guitar Show

Views: 175,948

Rating: 4.9200535 out of 5

Keywords: bass, bass guitar, rig rundown, macca, beatles, The Beatles, Wings, Hofner Bass

Id: 3u0_Z7ibGxA

Length: 25min 53sec (1553 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 20 2020

Reddit Comments

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