Sweet Picking

TG and Jimmy Dunlop tip their hats to Jim Dunlop Snr

- Jim Dunlop

The start of 2019 was bittersweet for Dunlop. The umbrella home of the Cry Baby, MXR, Way Huge and many more pedalboard staples had a triumphant NAMM Show, launching signature products with Billie Joe Armstrong, Jerry Cantrell, as well as updates and new additions to each of its iconic brands. However, shortly after, on the 6 February, company founder, and guitar industry pioneer, Jim Dunlop passed away. The loss was felt far and wide, as anyone who’s anyone has at some point played a product not only with Jim’s name on it but more likely than not, one that he envisioned or improved. “We always used to say it was like the Dunlop way,” Jim’s son, Jimmy, tells us. “We’d take a problem or take a product and deconstruct it, and then rebuild it the way we think it should be built.”

However, this is certainly not the end for Dunlop – Jimmy has been a part of the company for over 30 years, continuing Jim’s groundbreaking work with his own developments. Here, we speak with Jimmy to find out about the most recent addition to Dunlop’s pick line, the Flow Tortex, as well as finding out the brief history of how a young Scottish engineer came to be a visionary of guitar products.

How did Jim’s engineering background shape what he did?

“I’ve seen it said in so many articles that Jim was a chemical engineer, and I have no idea where that came from. He started out working in the shipyards, for Barr and Stroud who made lenses and optical devices, scientific equipment for ships. He left school at 14 to become an apprentice at Barr and Stroud, and so he was trained at a very young age to be meticulous and very precise. He worked the lathe, he could create things with his hands. So that’s where it all came from.”

Was he already a guitar player?