By those days (=beginning May 1960) not many Liverpool bands did have a bass guitar:
- Davey "Mushy" Cooper played his blonde Höfner 500/5 with The Bob's Vegas Five
- Walter Eymond played his Framus Star Bass with Rory Storm & THe Hurricanes
- Stuart Sutcliffe played his brunnette Höfner 500/5 with The Silver Beatles
- Malcom Linnell played his blonde Höfner 500/5 with Cliff Roberts & The Rockers
- Johnny Gustafson played his Hoyer_Soloist_converted_to_a_bass with Cass & The Cassanovas
- Les Chadwick played his Framus_Sorella_converted_to_a_bass (=with an extra pickup at the tailpiece!!!) with Gerry & The Pacemakers
- Phil Whitehead played his ...Kay??? with Derry & The Seniors. Was this instrument also a guitar converted to a bass??
At least two bass players (=perhaps three??) at the historical audition at Wyvern Club on 10 May 1960 had their regular guitars converted to a bass, i.e., 40% (=perhaps 60%??) of the total. No wonder that Paul McCartney did the same a few months after with his Solid 7...
Mo Foster,
Seventeen Watts?, London, Sanctuary, 1997, pp. 93-94:
"...Often, in the enthusiasm of forming a band, there would be an excess of one instrument. This imbalance was solved during the skiffle period when four guitars would suddenly dwindle to three guitars as one player, so he imagined, was demoted to the lower rank of bass player. Everybody thought there had to be a bass although nobody actually knew what it did. The unfortunate player was usually chosen by default -either he knew the least number of chords, or he was last to join, or perhaps his personality dictated a desire to stand at the back...
...Somehow, somewhere, I'd heard the phrase 'Electric Bass Guitar'. It sounded longer and more important than just a guitar, and I liked it. Desperate for more information (even though my lack of funds would preclude such a purchase), I scanned the advertisements but they were not helpful. For example, 'The Hofner Bass Guitar': "Guitarists, double your income with the Hofner Bass Guitar. Tuned like a bass with the third, fourth, fifth and sixth strings of a guitar"...
...This confusing information led me to believe that to play the bass guitar you merely removed the top two strings of an ordinary guitar, and then in some way amplified it..."Xosé