Why did Paul choose the Höfner violin bass in the early Beatle days?

Just incredible, isn’t it? Now image the average US American Joe Sixpack reading a language in which the characters é, è, ê, ë, ė and æ are not just more or less insignificant variations of the basic “e”, but actually different characters with different meanings and different pronunciation. Life is complicated

 

Meh. I like many others use the term semi-hollow to refer to thinlines, which the Casino is. Other examples include the Gibson 335, 345 and 355. A full hollow body is something like the Gibson L-4. Here's a link to a page from Guitar Center's listing of Gibson Semi-hollows and hollows.

Gibson Semi-Hollow and Hollow Body Electric Guitars | Guitar Center

But yes, technically since it does not have a block inside, despite the exterior similarity with a Gibson 335, it is arguably a hollow body.

 

Höfner Verithin.

 

One last interruption-test the Mikro. I love it, but it might not be for everyone.

 

Here's a story i lifted from Rolling Stone magazine....
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, much to Costello's horror, five strings. Costello inquired about the Hofner, trying not to sound too much like the Beatle geek that all of us would be in that moment. McCartney then pulled it out of storage, and has been using it as his main instrument ever since.

 

So, Elvis Costello......CHANGED ROCK HISTORY!

 

Gibson EB-1 (released 3 years before the Hofner)
no umlauts needed

 

Gibsön sounds cooler

 

Luckily for all of us, Paul was unable to find one of these in the UK

 

the fender jazz bass was too heavy?

 

You list your location as Austria. Isn't it really Österreich?

 

Location names are different depending on the context of the language used. In German my country is called Österreich, in English and many other languages Austria, in French Autriche. But my family name (or last name) is Berghofer, regardless of the language I’m currently using. Unlike names for locations, family or last names won’t be translated into other languages. Mr. Karl Höfner (originally Austro-Bohemian as his time) used his last name for the company he founded in 1887, and therefore his company should always be called and written Höfner in any language using Latin glyphs. This would be different if this name was transcripted into languages using different non-Latin glyphs, like for example Russian, Greek, Japanese or Chinese.

The German and the English language both use Latin glyphs, so there’s no need to write a name like Höfner using partially wrong characters. For example “Marshall” is a well-known brand name for amplifiers. “Marschall” would be the German variant of this word, but no person caring for language would write it this way.

 

Thank you Elvis! However, I was just listening to "Free as a Bird" and Paul's WAL bass sure sounds warm on that track. WAL basses, while being all hi-tech and expensive, to my ears, never sounded like other "hi-tech" basses. John Illsey, Flea and others have used WAL basses and they seem to avoid that dreaded "plink, plink" sound.

 

It was cheap!

 

spanish speakers have been laughing about this for hundreds of years.

tengo veinte años: I'm twenty years old.
tengo veinte anos: I have twenty anuses.​

 

This sounds like a plausible reason. Omitting umlaut dots in uppercase brand names and/or logotypes usually has aesthetic and marketing reasons:

• Umlaut dots are placed above the character or glyph, which gives this character a different capital height. Company or brand names written in uppercase letters appear slightly uneven when they contain umlaut characters. Compare the uniform appearance of HOFNER versus HÖFNER. When written vertically, the “Ö” requires a little bit more visual line spacing (“leading”) than the other uppercase characters. For this reason some (odd looking) typefaces place the umlaut dots not above, but at the letter’s sides instead.

• Acronyms and (uppercase only) brand names appear to be more international, urbane and sophisticated when they contain no umlaut characters. A few examples from my country: ORF (Österreichisches Radio und Fernsehen, the Austrian broadcasting company), OMV (Österreichische Mineralölverwaltung, an integrated oil and gas company), OTOB (Österreichische Termin- und Optionenbörse, now part of the Vienna Stock Exchange). This might be related to the abbrevations used for international airport names, travel destinations and/or stock trading names and symbols, which mostly originate from English speaking countries where umlauts and diacritic characters are not known.

If you visit the Höfner website you’ll notice that even in the English version the logotype in the script font contains the lowercase “ö”. The English Wikipedia also shows the mixed cased “Höfner” logotype.

 

I'm curious to know why you don't like it, Steve - perhaps a bit too much Beatles pastiche going on with the harmonies?

 

Not only did he get him to start using the Hofner, he was also suggesting bass lines for Paul to play on it. I distinctly recall an interview with him in Musician magazine around the time Flowers in the Dirt came out where he said he'd suggested to Paul that "a Paperback Writer-Taxman cross-figure" might work on a particular song.

 

What if BOTH are true?

 

The story I heard was that Costello told McCartney that people expected to see him with the iconic Hofner. McCartney, the shrewd businessman (and ham) that he is, saw the value in that and now milks that guitar for all it is worth, holding it in countless photo shoots, projecting it like a priceless gem on the giant screens at live shows, holding it up in the air with one hand over his head on stage like a sword after a victorious battle.

It's a cool guitar and I always liked the look of it aesthetically, and the fact that he had this unique-looking instrument while others held their ordinary bulky Fenders. I just wish John and George were still around to smack him back down to earth at times.

 

Sure, he does all that. Why not. But it would be nice if he would use other bass guitars on his recordings since Flaming Pie though.
And to be honest, it is a bit weird seeing live videos of him with 5-string Wal for example or Yamaha, instead of the 'usual' Ric or Hofner.

 

It is a beautiful instrument, and I can recall pictures of him with it in his Beatle days where it looked like the most luxurious musical fashion accessory possible.