PETE LUNNEY OPINION


Pete Lunney, has presided over a substantial period of growth for the Sussex-based company and is going to be a hard act to follow when he retires this month, following 25 years in the industry. Lunney joined Strings and Things from a sales position outside the music business (from the cosmetics giant L’Oreal, in fact) in July 1985, as he recalls. “I’d always played guitar and sung – mandolin Dobro and acoustic guitar – from the age of 15, playing in all the local pubs and I was desperate to get into the music business. An old friend of mine, Miller Anderson, had seen an advert for a job with Strings and Things, told me about it and off I went for an interview with Alan Grant.


WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK


Music Man T


hough he might, with characteristic modesty, play down his responsibility for it, Strings and Things’ general manager,


Guitar accessory brands of all varieties were looked after by Pete over the years


After 25 years with one of the UK’s most influential suppliers, Pete Lunney is retiring. ‘It’ll never last!’ say his colleagues. Gary Cooper finds out if it will or not…


“I started here as a salesman in 1985


through 1986 and then one day in the autumn of ‘87, Rod Bradley said he was looking for someone to manage the factory the company had bought down in Wales. He said he was going to advertise the post but thought he’d give us first choice. I went home and asked my wife and my son whether they fancied moving down to Wales, ‘yes’ was the answer, so I volunteered myself.” The factory in Wales was the home of


General Music Strings, producer of Picato strings among others, and situated in the Rhondda in South Wales. It hadn’t been a widely publicised acquisition at the time, but it was a significant one for Strings and Things – let alone the survival of several important British brands, beside the venerable Picato. S&T had also acquired the Klondyke strings, straps and accessories brand along the way and was


to go on to develop what has become a major export success with the unique Innovation double bass string, which has become a ‘must have’ product among Jazz and Rockabilly bassists around the world, particularly in the USA. Though the Innovation brand might not be on the tip of every UK retailer’s tongue, it has now become a major force in the double bass world. Originally developed in the early 1990s by Jazz bassist Lionel Davis, the concept was to offer a bass string with the reliability of steel- core strings, but also incorporating the tone and feel of gut. Tony Roberts, Picato’s master string maker, worked on the development of the new concept, at first with Davis, later with Jazz bassist Michael Moore and also with the assistant principle of the National Orchestra of Wales at the time, Norman Mason, to perfect the product.


miPRO JANUARY 2011 29


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92