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The guitar guru
By Bjørn L. Drengsgaard
Many consider him one of the greatest guitar slingers in the world. Others think that his songs are best used as sleeping pills. The British musician Mark Knopfler has a tendency to make people dis- agree. He has done that ever since he entered the international music scene with a red Fender guitar around his neck more than 25 years ago and started creating a name for himself. What Knopfler’s fans especially admire him for is his elegant fingerpicking technique and his melancholy, personal songs that he sings with his subdued, hoarse voice. In the general public he is probably most well-known as the frontman of Dire Straits, one of the world's biggest rock groups up through the 1980s. Mark Knopfler was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1949. Later, the family moved to northern England, where Knopfler studied to become a journalist and later an English teacher. Although he did use both his educations professionally, the guitar appealed more to the young Knopfler. As a teenager, he fell in love with the instrument and managed to save up £50 for his first electric guitar. From the mid-1960s he played in various local groups in Leeds, and in 1973 he went to London to try his luck as a rock musician. Here his guitar was heard in various contexts, but without great success. In 1977 he moved into a flat with his brother David, who also played guitar, and the bassist John Illsley. The three men formed the foundation of the group that would soon be known as Dire Straits. The group’s debut album was published in 1978, and the career was jump-started when the song “Sultans of Swing” became a hit. The music style was simple blues rock, and it was centred around Mark Knopfler’s fluid and expressive guitar playing. For although Dire Straits consisted of four people from the beginning, it was first and foremost Mark Knopfler’s group. He wrote their songs, played lead guitar and sang all vocals. Some of the other members thought he was taking up too much space, and Dire Straits turned into a revolving door. The first to leave the group was David Knopfler, saying that he was tired of playing second guitar and wanted to do his own projects. Despite the replacements, Dire Straits continued to tour and make records. In 1985, the group re- ceived its biggest commercial success with the album “Brothers in Arms”, which sold over 25 mil- lion copies worldwide. In 1993, the live album “On the Night” appeared, and then the group dis- banded. Since then, Mark Knopfler has devoted himself to a solo career. Already in the time with Dire Straits he wrote music for movies such as “Local Hero”, but the solo career did not become official until 1996 with the album “Golden Heart”. Since then two more albums have been added, and a new one is on its way in September. Mark Knopfler has also worked as a songwriter and guest musician for a wide range of artists such as Tina Turner, Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton. He has also moved into musical styles such as folk, jazz and country, for instance on the album “Neck and Neck”, where he plays alongside coun- try legend Chet Atkins. In his solo projects and guest performances, Knopfler is often softer and more laid back than he was in Dire Straits. It has made some reject him as old-fashioned and boring, while others believe that he has just matured with age. But there is little doubt that he is still a brilliant guitarist.
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