Beatles bassist Paul McCartney actually started out playing lead guitar for the Beatles' precursor group, the Quarrymen, in 1957. Paul played rhythm and lead guitar for the band until George Harrison took over on lead. When bassist Stuart Sutcliffe left the band in 1961, Paul reluctantly took over. In the book "Many Years From Now" by Barry Miles, McCartney remembers thinking that "Bass was the thing that the fat boys got lumbered with and were asked to stand at the back and play "". So I definitely didn't want to do it but Stuart left, and I got lumbered with it. Later I was quite happy """" This photo, taken by nineteen-year-old Seattle native Timothy Eagan, shows left-handed Paul McCartney playing and singing during the Beatles 29-minute set in Seattle. He plays his specially made left-handed Hoffner 500/1 "violin" bass, his second Hofner of that model. The guitar was given to him by the company in 1963 to replace the one he bought in Hamburg two years earlier, now well-worn. McCartney reportedly liked the instrument's shape, "because I was left-handed, it looked less daft because it was symmetrical."

Caption information source: "Paul McCartney's Guitars" by John F. Crowley at http://www.thecanteen.com/mccartney1.html