The story of Paul McCartney‘s stolen bass guitar is set to be told in the new documentary, The Beatle and the Bass Guitar.
BBC Arts has commissioned the upcoming documentary film, and it will be produced by Passion Pictures, who previously created music flicks such as Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars, Stones in Exile and Live Forever.
McCartney will also feature in The Beatle and the Bass Guitar, giving an interview about his relationship with the Höfner instrument that he purchased in 1961, and the long road it took for it to be returned to him in 2024.
In a statement, McCartney told Variety, “I think anything that’s 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.”
In addition to McCartney, the documentary will include an interview with the musician’s brother, Mike McCartney, Elvis Costello, as well as the team behind The Lost Bass Project, who were responsible for bringing the bass back into Macca’s grasp.
McCartney initially bought the instrument for £30 in 1961, and used it to help write a number of Beatles classics before it was sadly stolen around the time that the Fab Four recorded Let It Be.
Decades after it disappeared, The Lost Bass Project launched a search for the missing Höfner 500/1 in 2023, and this ultimately led to student Ruaidhri Guest sharing a photograph of the elusive guitar on social media. He had inherited the instrument and upon discovering the history of the item, Guest returned it to its rightful owner.
Upon being reunited with his beloved Höfner, McCartney wrote on social media, “To my friends and family, I inherited this item, which has been returned to Paul McCartney. Share the news.”
Emily Jeal, head of feature documentaries at Passion Pictures, said of the upcoming documentary, “From its beginnings, we knew The Beatle and the Bass was exactly the kind of distinctive, emotional and uplifting story that we love to tell.”
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