Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hi folks, I’m doing a research about the basses McCartney played after the Beatles break up and I have some doubts about it:

I found out six basses until now: Hofner 501, Rickenbacker 4001, Yamaha BB-1200, Wal /5 strings, Kay Jazz Special and Fender Jazz bass. Is there any more?

Now I’m trying to know which songs are recorded with each one and I have special problems with Yamaha and Kay models. I think he used Yamaha in the first 80s. Maybe in Back to the Egg? In all songs? And I have no idea about if he ever recorded something with Kay. About this last one, Did he buy it during the Beatles years? (Because it’s a model introduced in 1960 and it was made until 1962).

I thank “any little help from my friends”

I have a real nice 16x20 photograph on my bedroom wall of Paul with his Wal. The shot was taken by Janet Macoska in Cleveland, in '89.

I believe Paul started with the Yamaha in 1978/79. Their is definitely a great deal of photographic evidence to support this. It was used from that time through at least 1984 for "Give My Regards to Broad Street". I always thought it was a bb1600. What do I know? The Kay bass was an obscure one. I have only seen one picture of him with it and it seems to be from the very early 70's. Since this is a Rickenbacker page, let's not forget that Paul has a 4003/5 jetglo. He had it with him on the 89/90 tour as a backup for his WAL. And if you are interested, Linda bought him the Bill Black (Elvis) bass in 1979. If you really want a project, start researching the guitars. he has dozens of them.

I forgot one Rickenbacker. John Hall made the very first 4004C for Paul. He gave it to him one year as a Christmas present. It has no serial number on it because it was just one of a kind...I think. Anyway, the first 4004C was a left handed model for Paul. I believe, however, that the first production 4004C is right handed and it still resides at RIC in Santa Ana. Maybe you should ask John Hall. Good Luck! Let us know how your project turns out.

That Kay Jazz special bass is the one ive seen him use on a couple live performances of Junior's farm in 72-72 ish..........it actually has a nice tone that is suprisingly similar to that of a rickenbacker

If you saw him play Juniors Farm on it then that would be around '74.

However, the only photographs I've seen of this bass is from 72/73.

It was early 74' the above phrase was listed incorrectly as---(72'-72 ish) when it was intended to be (72'-74' ish)