The joys (NOT) of playing an unfamiliar bass (Hofner)

Dynacord said:

One supposed quote here - though it doesn't reference the source:

5 facts about Beatles gear you may not have known

Paul McCartney’s image is synonymous with the Hofner 500/1 Violin Bass, which made it all the more shocking when his original bass was stolen. McCartney purchased the bass in 1962 in Hamburg, Germany, at the Steinway Musichaus. As Paul later recalled of the day and the bass:
“There was this bass which was quite cheap… I couldn’t afford a Fender; even then, they seemed to be about £100. All I could really afford was about £30, so for about £30 I found this Hofner violin bass. And to me it seemed like, because I was left-handed, it looked less daft because it was symmetrical. Didn’t look as bad as a cutaway which was the wrong way. So I got into that.”

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"Bass was the thing that the fat boys got lumbered with and were asked to stand at the back and play . . . So I definitely didn't want to do it but Stuart left, and I got lumbered with it. Later I was quite happy . . . " There are reports but no photos of McCartney playing Sutcliffe's Hofner President bass -- without re-stringing! -- and apparently the re-worked Rosetti had finally disintegrated at this point, so McCartney found himself in Hamburg's Steinway Musichaus one day. "I remember going along there, and there was this bass which was quite cheap. I couldn't afford a Fender. Fenders even then seemed to be about £100. All I could really afford was about £30 . . . so for about £30 I found this Hofner violin bass. And to me it seemed like, because I was left-handed, it looked less daft because it was symmetrical. Didn't look as bad as a cutaway which was the wrong way. So I got into that."

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Stuart was leaving the band and he wanted to stay in Hamburg, so we had to have a bass player. He lent me his bass, so I got off the piano and came up front line again. But I actually play it upside down. I kind of wrangle my way around it. I always have to be inventive, because I was having to play things upside down. The guitar breaks, you'd have to go on to piano, try and think up something. So, when Stuart was going to stay I thought, it's obvious, I'm gonna be bass player now. I got elected, or lumbered, as the case may be. In Hamburg there was a place we used to go, this guitar shop, and there was this bass [the Höfner Violin] that was quite cheap. I couldn't afford a Fender. Fenders even then seemed to be about a hundred quid. All I could afford was about thirty quid. It sounds funny, when people are doing my 'mean image': Oh yeah, typical. But it's not mean, it's being scared to spend money. With my dad we were always teetering on the edge of not having much. So for about thirty quid I found this bass. And to me it seemed, because I was lefthanded, it looked less daft because it was symmetrical. Didn't look as bad as a cutaway which was the wrong way. So I got into that. That became my main bass. I got a couple through the years. The one I have now [1989] is one of the ones from the last Beatles tour, before I got the Rickenbacker. The great surprise was that even though it was little and cheap and cheerful, it had an amazing deep sound, and I'm still chuffed that I use it regularly. And it's very light, that's the grat buzz about it. Any bass you pick these days, like I've got a fivestring Wal, and it's like picking up a chair. But this little Höfner, you just string it up, it's like it's not there. So you can walk around and move around, and it actually alters your playing. You play a lot faster, very easily. Recently I saw the Let It Be ontheroof thing, and I just noticed how light it looked to play this bass. I've got right back into it. So I bought that back there in Hamburg. And set off on the road to stardom.

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“Stuart Sutcliffe was leaving the band and he wanted to stay in Hamburg, so we had to have a bass player. So I got elected bass player, or lumbered as the case may be.
“I got my Violin Bass at the Steinway shop in the town centre. I remember going along and there was this bass which was quite cheap. It cost the German Mark equivalent of £30 or so – my dad had always hammered into us never to get into debt because we weren’t that rich.
“John and George went easily in debt and got beautiful guitars: John got a Club 40 and George had a Futurama – which is like a Fender copy – and then, later, Gretsches,” Paul recalls. “Then John got the Rickenbackers. They were prepared to use hire-purchase credit, but it had been so battered into me not to do that, I wouldn’t risk it. So I bought a cheap guitar. And once I bought it, I fell in love with it. That’s why I’m using it again now. For a light, dinky little bass, it has a very rich sound.”
[...]
“To tell you the truth, it was because I was left-handed. 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. 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.
“I think that Höfner was one of the first companies with any decent instruments, not only the Violin Bass, but also their guitars. 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 like it a lot – you play a lot faster, very easily. Its main problem is in the inaccuracy of the tuning when you get up the neck a bit. 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. It’s still basically original; it’s still the same instrument.”

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HaphAsSard said:

The search for a source has proven a little frustrating.

The guitar.com article is possibly quoting (verbatim) this thecanteen.com page by a John F. Crowley

mccartney3
The source might be the book Many Years from Now by Barry Miles (1997), mentioned by Crowley immediately before the quote above, but it's unclear if the source extends to all the subsequent quotes, and I don't own the Miles book.

With some splicing together of Google Books previews, I could reconstruct this other quote, which is close but not word-for-word identical (note "which was quite cheap" vs. "that was quite cheap"), included in Paul Du Noyer's Conversations with McCartney (2015, but the first interview, including the passages in question, is from 1989) :

Conversations with McCartney

This *other* guitar.com page would seem to be a reproduction of a 1993 interview, but the content is once again very similar to, but once again not exactly the same as, the above quotes. Here it goes:

"We turned into aggressive, crazy people during Wings": Paul McCartney

Finally, this guitarplayer.com article interprets Macca's words as implying he "strongly desired a Fender":
"Do you know what happened to my lost bass, the one that got pinched?" How Paul McCartney's simple 2019 query over coffee in a studio led to a forensic hunt for the iconic Höfner 500/1 violin bass

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Pimpernel Smith said:

McCartney was able to order a 500/1 violin model made as left-handed from the local music store, which I believe was named Steinways. This was most probably the first left-handed violin bass Hofner made. Lucky him.

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Williethump said:

Same for me. I bought a Rogue Beatle bass and liked the woody, thumpy sound it made. Sadly, my arthritis and its ergonomics clashed after I played if longer than ten minutes. It was a cheap clone so I didn't lose much selling it on. No point in nice sound if it cripples me. That said, the controls were incomprehensible and that one tone is all it seems to produce. Not versatile. They are undeniably cute.
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HaphAsSard said:

I'm well aware he added a Jazz to his quiver (as I am that he never fully retired the Hoffie until the Beatles disbanded), but it's not germane to the question of whether or not he got the Violin despite really wanting a Fender instead (in 1961).
_____


What part of my earlier post
The quote I read is that Paul got a Höfner 500/1 because it could be ordered as a lefty, and didn't look "daft" in such form. If there's any reference to his longing for a Fender and having to settle for something else, I'd love to read it.
is "nuts" to you, pray tell?
That I read the quote I say I did? The content of that quote? Or me wishing I could read another quote attesting McCartney's early pining for a Fender?

Cool. Let's see it, then. As I said, I would love to.
***SNIP***

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GretschWretch said:

A Gibson is not all mud. A Hofner is not all thump.

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GretschWretch said:

A Gibson is not all mud. A Hofner is not all thump.

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Dynacord said:

I did play one (a 60's German one) that belonged to Al Jardine on a Beach Boys session. Sounded great. Though, as others have said, the floating bridge and narrow spacing made it awkward - maybe a plus that it kept things simple. It would clearly take some time investment to get really comfortable on.

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Dynacord said:

I did play one (a 60's German one) that belonged to Al Jardine on a Beach Boys session. Sounded great. Though, as others have said, the floating bridge and narrow spacing made it awkward - maybe a plus that it kept things simple. It would clearly take some time investment to get really comfortable on.

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Pimpernel Smith said:

In post war England, Hofner instruments, including arch top acoustic and electric guitars, were very popular and available. When The Beatles were playing in Germany, they were all the more easy to come by. Even John Lennon played a Hofner electric guitar, with a Club shaped body.

McCartney was able to order a 500/1 violin model made as left-handed from the local music store, which I believe was named Steinways. This was most probably the first left-handed violin bass Hofner made. Lucky him.

The first bass player for The Beatles was Stu Sutcliffe, who at the urging of John Lennon had purchased his large Hofner bass in Liverpool with money he won from an art competition. Below, Paul and Stu are on the left, each with their respective Hofner basses.
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Batced said:

I wonder if that was the one that Al and Carl (and Brian to a slightly lesser extent) shared during 1967, specifically the Smiley Smile and Wild Honey sessions and the August Honolulu shows that they intended for the live album Lei’d in Hawaii (that famous clip of Carl playing it while singing God Only Knows, it sure sounds lovely in that live, stripped down context!)

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Dynacord said:

I have no idea on the history of the bass other than Al said it was a 60's one. Certainly cool - and plausible - to imagine it was that same one. It was at his Red Barn Studio in Big Sur. I played on two Beach Boys tracks. One with the Hofner and the other with a '65 Jazz Bass of my own. It was just doing the bass and drums. The vocals were already recorded (and did include Brian Wilson). I recorded several other times there as well. Once just with a local band and several sessions when he was toying with producing a surf instrumental band. Also played live a couple times with him and Johnny Rivers.

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