“I’d go down to Manny’s, pick up a Stratocaster and say, ‘This is like a dead tuna’”: Why Larry DiMarzio decided to start a pickup line that would change the face of guitar music in the 1970s

The DiMarzio pickups and bridge of a Lag Mastershop Imperator IP3000 Prestige electric guitar, during a studio shoot for Guitarist Magazine/Future via Getty Images, February 29, 2008. .

The surname “DiMarzio” is now inextricably linked to the DiMarzio brand, one of the world's leading electric guitar pickup firms. Larry DiMarzio, the man behind it all, started his career as a guitar repairman in New York in the early 1970s, before his keen ears and business acumen noticed that there was a gap in the market: pickups that delivered even greater tone.

“I started working at the Guitar Lab around ’71 or ’72,” he tells Guitarist. “I was going to work at a professional guitar shop around the corner of 48th Street [in New York City] and I suddenly had access to tons of guitars that were coming through the shop for repair. Or I’d go down to Manny’s, pick up a Stratocaster, and say, ‘This is like a dead tuna,’ you know?”