Idle (& idol) speculation/ Paul McCartney v. Fender bass?

[halfnote]

I realize this is something on which we can only speculate but it's something which I've long wondered about but, oddly, never seen addressed.

Despite their early identification with some particularly iconographic instruments, the members of the Beatles, throughout their careers, used a wide variety of instruments, amps, etc.
One combination that's apparently never occurred is Paul McCartney recording with or even being seen playing a Fender bass.


Here are some reason this seems odd to me:
---Fender was the bass well into the 1960s, so much that electric bass was for years referred to as "Fender bass".
---Like many companies, Fender sought not only endorsement deals with the band but for several years offered them various equipment just so they'd be seen/photographed using Fender gear.
---Every bandmember used some Fender gear, most notably Lennon & , esp. Harrison with Strats & Teles but also McCartney with an Esquire guitar & at various times they all used Fender amps along with the Rhodes piano. Even Ringo Starr, a devoted Ludwig player, supplemented those with some Rogers (Fender subsidiary) hardware.
---When Lennon & Harrison subbed on bass they used a Fender VI & a Jazz...so why not McCartney ?
---Though notorious skinflints personally, as a corporate entity the Beatles spared no expense to explore what they wanted: book 1/2 the LSO for a session to record a deliberately non-specific section on Sgt Pepper (& then get them back in later just for some film) ? "Coming right up!" Hire a bus, a film crew & 20 actors to drive around England for a week & then top that expense by sending another crew to France so Paul could be filmed doing a Julie Andrews imitation ? "Yes, sir!"
---A lefthand version of a Fender bass would've been well within their budget, possibly even free.
---Most oddly the Beatles & their producers, esp. McCartney & Geoff Emerick, went on record several times complaining that they couldn't get a heavy, Mowtown-like bass sound on their recordings. Many would agree that a first step in that direction might be using a Precision but McCartney only veered between the somewhat wooly thump of his Hofner & the brighter Rickenbacker. Even well into the 90s I've only ever heard of him using one other brand, a Wal.


Given the resources at their disposal & their penchant for pursuing any experimant while recording (even having EMI techs concoct a speaker-to-speaker coupling system to add wallop to the bass signal), McCartney's non-use of a Fender seems a singular avoidance but I've never read of anyone asking about this.

Granted, it's a small point but one I find curious.
Does anyone know any place this has been discussed ?

[* In one 1995 interview there's mention of McCartney using a Jazz & a Yamaha bass...but I've never seen him with either.]

[cooterbrown]

Fender guitars just simply weren't readily available in the UK in the early-mid 60's.
Think about all the British bands from that era, how many did you see with Fender instruments?
Rickenbacker's were easy to get a hold of, and you would see the odd Gibson or two, but Vox, Framus, Hofner, etc were the brands that most musicians used.
When UK bands toured the US they usually went home with one or two Fenders.
I'm guess that McCartney was used to and just preferred the smallish neck of his Hofner, and later he liked the tone of his Rickenbacker...but even then, he went back to the Hofner, fairly often.
The Yamaha BB he played in the 70s is heard on quite a few of his albums, and I believe is the one he used for the nice line he played on "Silly Love Songs".

[eeglug]

I found some pretty rare pics of Macca with a Fender lefty Jazz bass here (http://www.dmbeatles.com/forums/m-1136599110/). You have to scroll down a bit - the pics look to be from sometime in 1968. There is also a picture of him playing a right-handed Jazz Bass upside-down-lefty-style in the booklet for the 25th anniversary edition of Band On The Run.

Your point is still well-taken though...these little bits of evidence are fairly rare. It's more common to find pics of him playing Fender guitars (as opposed to basses).

[Lee Knight]

Yeah, cool post and great point. I thought it was cool to see Paul playing his Hofner lately. He still makes it sound right. A P-Bass just seems too fat for his style. He sounds round but not boomy. The Rick, the Hofner seem lean enough. Like a tuba and less like a string bass in a concert hall.

James Jamerson = String bass in concert hall
Paul McCartney = Tuba is a more intimate venue

[Tedster]

According to McCartney, he really wanted a Fender, because that was *the* cool bass. There were a couple of problems though, first, they were too expensive. And, even if he could have afforded one (we're talking on his then-salary of playing clubs in Hamburg), he couldn't find a lefty one, and switching a righty would have looked weird. So he found his signature violin shaped Hofner at a shop in Hamburg. It was affordable, and it was symmetric. You could swap the strings and play it lefty without it looking weird...but he did find an affordable left-handed one. By the time he could afford a Fender, the Hofner was a part of his image, and the crowds expected to see it.

A later interview said he really hated that bass, the way it played and the way it sounded. For a time with the Beatles around '66 or '67 he switched to a Ric (that still had a righty headstock on it). I guess finally though he had his Hofners (he had a few of them) modded to sound and play acceptably.

[Jeff da Weasel]

Why does this need to be such a conspiracy topic?

Here's a thought: maybe he didn't play a P-Bass or a J-Bass because he didn't like them. :idea:

Crazy, huh?

[Lee Knight]

Why does this need to be such a conspiracy topic?

Here's a thought: maybe he didn't play a P-Bass or a J-Bass because he didn't like them. :idea:

Crazy, huh?


Thread killer.

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

Why does this need to be such a conspiracy topic?

Here's a thought: maybe he didn't play a P-Bass or a J-Bass because he didn't like them. :idea:

Crazy, huh?

I didn't even know they had a bass player, I always thought Ringo plays those deep notes on the kick

[Magpel]

I didn't even know they had a bass player, I always thought Ringo plays those deep notes on the kick

Did you not know that you have been banned....from all Beatles threads? Here, go watch some Ivor Cutler:


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[Jeff da Weasel]

Thread killer.

I know. I should just play nicely with others, eh? :lol:

[Phil O'Keefe]

One combination that's apparently never occurred is Paul McCartney recording with or even being seen playing a Fender bass.

Our drummer Dennis is a Fender Custom Shop Master Builder, and he built Macca a custom P Bass (semi hollow, IIRC) just last year.

He definitely owns at least a few Fender basses that I know about, and possibly others that I'm not aware of. He uses the Hofner a lot because it's so associated with him - I think he thinks people expect to see him with one. He used the Ric (and later, the Wal) as his main bass for years, and didn't pull the Hofner out of retirement until Elvis Costello talked him into it for Veronica.

The main complaint he had, from what I've read, is the intonation on the Hofners... but I believe he's had that taken care of to his satisfaction.

[halfnote]

Why does this need to be such a conspiracy topic?

Here's a thought: maybe he didn't play a P-Bass or a J-Bass because he didn't like them. :idea:

Crazy, huh?
:confused:
First, where's the idea that this is a "conspiracy" topic come from ?
While I often agree with much of what you post, frankly that's just a weird leap...but everybody has bad moods.

The idea that he "just didn't like them" is reasonable (& there's a cliche about "the obvious answer being the most likely"...though further commentary by others puts that idea to rest, don't it ? :lol:).
My point was that for most of his early Beatle career, he complained of not getting a sound that would've been provided by a Fender bass.

Suggestions about Fender's comparable expense are valid but Fender made considerable efforts courting the Beatles with free gear starting with their first USA tour.

About the Hofner's distinctive image, I acknowleged & adressed that early in my OP but by 1967 he was already using the Rick in videos such image is a moot point by then ...& my point had to do with recordings anyway.

Thanks for the photo link, EEG, (though on inspection there seem some oddities in them) & your comments, Phil.

[Phil O'Keefe]

my point is that for most of his early Beatle career, he complained of not getting a sound that would've been provided by a Fender bass.


I don't think that just using a Fender would have solved that issue for him. The bigger part of the problem was EMI and their mastering proceedures and rules. EMI was notorious for doing things "by the book" - and the book in question was their book, their rules.

Too much bass on vinyl can cause issues with cutting disks and with stylus jumping. EMI was adament about the amount of bass on records because of concerns with record returns. Had Macca used a Fender, it wouldn't have mattered very much in terms of the sound of the records and the amount of bass on them if it was all going to get cut in mastering.

By the time of Paperback Writer / Rain, two things happened - Macca was using the Ric, and Martin / Emerick and the boys had finally talked the EMI brass into allowing them to cut discs with more bottom. The result was a single with more present bass on it. IMO, that had at least as much to do with the mastering as it did with the change of instrument, and I think some of the later songs that utilized the Hofner benefited from those mastering "rules" changes, because the bass is definitely more present on them vs the earlier songs that utilized the Hofner.

[DavidJones529]

He did use a Fender around the time of the White album (and later on) so it seems that conspiracy has been solved. They also had that Fender 6-string bass, mainly played by John and George, on the various songs that Paul didn't play bass (Let It Be/Abbey Road period).

I'm pretty certain Silly Love Songs was the Ric.

The Yamaha, I think, was Goodnight Tonight, and possibly other stuff around 1979.

[DavidJones529]

:confused:
My point was that for most of his early Beatle career, he complained of not getting a sound that would've been provided by a Fender bass.

Suggestions about Fender's comparable expense are valid but Fender made considerable efforts courting the Beatles with free gear starting with their first USA tour.


I'm not sure he complained all that much. I think he liked that Hofner quite a bit, image and shape and lightweight and easy to play...got famous with it, got backups. All these years later everyone knows the Beatle bass.

There's a book called Beatles Gear that documents all their gear dealings...including why he didn't buy a Fender at first, and why Fender couldn't make inroads with them until later...contracts with Vox and Rickenbacker and all that.

[Lee Knight]

I know. I should just play nicely with others, eh? :lol:

:)

[halfnote]

While I have every reason to accept the comments from PO'K ...

FWIW, at this point, I'd point out that, whatever their source, I suspect those photos on the site offered by EEG, are "Photo-shopped."...
I'm not accusing EEG
but as long-trime BeatleFan I've NEVER seen any such photos from the "Pepper" era (as trhose seem to be) before...plus there seem to be some visually-suspect qualitites to them.
Long-term BeaFans will easily recognize what I mean, as wil those with any experience with photography...

That in itself has nothing to do with wherther PMc used Fender instruments at any time but simply says my opinion about the photos...(Conspiracy-Jeff, take it from here...:poke:....)

[halfnote]

FWIW, the photos available at above site show Harrison from c.1966/67.
The Beatle had no Fender basses before 1968 (a Fender VI), no Jazz basses before (a single right hand model).
McCartney apparently had no Fender basses during the Bealtes period.
"Conspiracy" ball's back in your court....

[eeglug]

FWIW, at this point, I'd point out that, whatever their source, I suspect those photos on the site offered by EEG, are "Photo-shopped."...
I'm not accusing EEG

LOL. I work with photoshop everyday trying to make photorealistic renderings for our clients and I never even thought to look closely at those pics I linked to. I think you definitely have a case in that first photo, the one with Paul's left arm raised up. The others have flaws that look suspicious as well to me.

[halfnote]

Note the 2nd image w/ Harrison, where there's a black line around the head of the bass.


Mostly what I'm going on, though, is what seems dependable reseach that The Beatles had a lotta Fender gear including multiple guitars, amps, pianos & even a complete PA (used on Apple rooftop gig) & 2 right-hand basses but no bass for PM.
It just seems that he must've avoided having one.
I'm not trying to get answers that go any deeper than trying to find out if anyone's asked about this before.

[DavidJones529]

Why would someone photoshop that? That seems weird.

Here's the picture of Harrison from the white album:

http://forgottenjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/george-harrison-album.jpg

I've seen another picture of Harrison from the white album sessions playing that same acoustic and looking exactly the same.

Anyway...2 books list McCartney playing a Fender Jazz on songs such as Yer Blues and Glass Onion.

and yes, the basses he used including the Fender Jazz has been discussed shitloads!!

[Phil O'Keefe]

I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure I've seen, or have a copy of that pic of Macca with the J Bass and his arm raised in a book someplace...

[Lakesidedave]

[B]
By the time of Paperback Writer / Rain, two things happened - Macca was using the Ric, and Martin / Emerick and the boys had finally talked the EMI brass into allowing them to cut discs with more bottom. The result was a single with more present bass on it. IMO, that had at least as much to do with the mastering as it did with the change of instrument, and I think some of the later songs that utilized the Hofner benefited from those mastering "rules" changes, because the bass is definitely more present on them vs the earlier songs that utilized the Hofner.

Another factor in the bass sound on Paperback Writer/Rain is the use of a speaker as a mic, and heavy use of a Fairchild compressor.
Regarding mastering at the time: EMI made all their own gear, including cutting lathes. Is it possible that the mastering on the later recordings was done using a Neumann lathe? Certainly mastering engineers such as Porky (famed for mastering Reggae tracks with stupendous bass) were using these, as they were able to cut higher bass levels accurately without chucking the needle out of the groove or suffering phase cancellation.
Just wondering.

[philbo]

One combination that's apparently never occurred is Paul McCartney recording with or even being seen playing a Fender bass.

Our drummer Dennis is a Fender Custom Shop Master Builder, and he built Macca a custom P Bass (semi hollow, IIRC) just last year.

He definitely owns at least a few Fender basses that I know about, and possibly others that I'm not aware of. He uses the Hofner a lot because it's so associated with him - I think he thinks people expect to see him with one. He used the Ric (and later, the Wal) as his main bass for years, and didn't pull the Hofner out of retirement until Elvis Costello talked him into it for Veronica.

The main complaint he had, from what I've read, is the intonation on the Hofners... but I believe he's had that taken care of to his satisfaction.

I had the same problem with my Hofner bass, back in the early '70s. It only played in tune up to the 9th fret or so. Drove me nuts. It wasn't a string length problem, more like a design problem I guess. The pickups were pulling on the strings a bit, which was some of the issue. The action was mediocre, which was some more of the issue (the upper notes would pull sharp when I fretted). And the body was so light that the neck would dive for the floor whenever I let go of the neck. I never did sort it all out satisfactorily. It was cheap, though. I think I paid $40 for it in a pawnshop. I used it when I played in a band called 'Dutch Schultz and Shotgun'. Now I don't even remember what ever happened to it....