FTV: Mark Knopfler

     Though they span decades and many genres, there is a connecting thread between the following list of guitar players:  Jeff Beck, Lindsey Buckingham, Ritchie Kotzen, Robbie Krieger, Albert Collins, Albert King, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, and, as noted in the title above, Mark Knopfler.  It isn’t a brand of guitar, the endorsement of a certain model of amplifier, or common roots.  They are all players who have made a career out of playing without the use of a plectrum, commonly referred to as a pick.  Knopfler told Guitar Player magazine’s Christopher Scapelliti (published July 5, 2025) for him it was due to the simple discovery that, “Playing with your fingers has something to do with the immediacy and soul.”  Even with the long list of guitarists who have performed pick-less over the years, Knopfler’s emergence with his band Dire Straits in the heyday of MTV videos made him the newest face in the world of guitarists playing in that manner.

     It wasn’t a matter of Knopfler never having played with a pick.  In a June 1992 GP cover feature, he recounted how it all started for him:  “I was sleeping on the floor in somebody’s apartment.  They had a cheap imitation of a Gibson Dove acoustic with unbelievably light strings.  It was like playing an electric guitar, but there was a little bit of sound to it.  You couldn’t really strum or bash it (due to the late hour he was playing it), so I had to fingerpick.

As I was flying around this guitar, I realized I was doing things with my fingers that I could do with a pick, and also some other things that I wouldn’t be able to do with a pick.”

     When the iconic Money For Nothing, Walk of Life, and Sultans of Swing videos were put into heavy rotation by the music channel,  Mark Knopfler was suddenly anointed the next innovative guitar hero.  Jeff Beck was always a ‘player’s player’ in regard to inventing new ways to coax new sounds from his guitar.   Beck’s mostly instrumental albums were largely written off as brilliant, but with the caveat, “Well, that is Jeff Beck for you.”  Knopfler’s sound wasn’t as ‘out there’ as some of the stuff Beck was doing but it made Dire Straits unlikely pop stars and they moved a lot of albums via their MTV exposure.

     Proof that he still used a pick occasionally was revealed in a 2023 interview when he told GP that he had finally ditched using a pick completely due to “Lack of use and three bouts of COVID.  I just kept losing them and would be fingerpicking more – not necessarily fingerpicking better, just more.  It proved to be a bit more comfortable for me.”  Back in the 1992 article that supplied the ‘immediacy and soul’ quote mentioned above, he added, “[When fingerpicking] You’re absolutely in touch with what’s going on.  And that can lead to other things too.”  No doubt the ‘other things’ he was alluding to included fingerpicking an electric guitar, the vehicle that propelled Dire Straits to the top of the pop charts.  

     There were other nuances he would incorporate into his sound:  “On the electric, I developed the sound a bit further with a volume pedal.  Just a simple Ernie Ball pedal.  It gives you more of a speaking voice, something that approximates a steel guitar.  I always wanted that.  I can’t sing, so the guitar becomes a voice in many ways.  You’re not looking at Bonnie Raitt here.” (Ed Note:  Knopfler’s voice appears all over the Dire Straits and on his solo albums so he does sing, but apparently he doesn’t see his voice as a ‘lead instrument’ in the same league as his guitar playing).  Perhaps he doesn’t have the vocal chops of other pop vocalists, but his vocal style fits perfectly with his guitar voice.  Whether they are songs from his solo catalog or the Dire Straits era, his songs are certainly easy to recognize.

     Mark Freuder Knopfler was born on August 12, 1949, in Glasgow, Scotland to an English mother and a Hungarian – Jewish father.  His architect father (and also an avid chess player) fled Hungary in 1939 ahead of the Nazis.  He and his teacher wife originally settled in Glasgow.  After the 1952 birth of Mark’s younger brother David, they moved to Newcastle which was near to her home town of Blyth.  The couple had married there in 1947 and Mark’s older sister Ruth had been born in England.  The family eventually settled in the North East English town of Blyth after their stint in Glasgow.  It was the harmonica and boogie woogie piano playing of his uncle Kinglsey that sparked young Mark’s early interest in all styles of music.  Though he first wanted an expensive Fiesta Red Fender Stratocaster like Hank Marvin’s (guitarist for the Shadows), he settled for a more modest Hofner Super Solid for an equally modest price of 50 pounds.  To pay it off, he found a Saturday job  at the Newcastle Evening Chronicle newspaper at the age of 13 (earning six shillings and sixpence).  

     His musical tastes were formed in the 1960s listening to Elvis Presley, Chet Atkins, Scotty Moore, B.B.King, Django Reinhardt, James Burton, and of course, Hank Marvin.  He studied journalism for a year at Harlow College and was hired as a junior reporter by the Yorkshire Evening Post in Leeds.  Along with Steve Phillips (described as a furniture restorer, country blues enthusiast and a part-time performer), they gigged as The Duolian String Pickers.  Mark finished his education two years later with a degree in English at the University of Leeds.  His first foray into recording came in April of 1970 when he made a demo disc of an original song called Summers Coming My Way.  After graduation in 1973, Knopfler moved to London and knocked around with various pub bands.  He took a job as a lecturer for three years at London College in Essex.  Musically, things began to change in the mid-1970s.

     When Mark’s brother David moved to London, they shared an apartment with fellow player John Illsley who had recently changed over from guitar to bass.  With Pick Withers on drums, the band morphed from being the Cafe Racers to the earliest iteration of Dire Straits.  In July of 1977, they recorded their first demos which included Sultans of Swing.  Their eponymous first album was released in October of 1978 but didn’t make any waves in the chart ocean.  It was a different story when Sultans of Swing was released as a single and became a hit in the Netherlands.  It soon grew legs across Europe and then in the United States and Canada (U.K. was late in catching on).  Their second and third releases (Communique (June 1979) and Making Movies (October 1980)) featured more complex arrangements.  Making Movies included  the songs Romeo and Juliet and Tunnel of Love, the latter of which was featured in the 1982 film An Officer and a Gentleman featuring Richard Gere.

     The band member shuffle began in the 1980s and eventually, Knopfler and Illsley would be the only originals to last the entire 18 years the band was together.  Tensions between the brothers saw David leave the band during the Making Movie sessions.  Drummer Withers would announce his departure from Dire Straits when 1982’s Love Over Gold was released.  Prior to embarking on the eight month Love Over Gold tour, a four-song EP (ExtendeddancEPlay) came out featuring the track Twisting by the Pool.  The double album Alchemy Live was recorded at the Hammersmith Odeon on July 22 and 23, 1983 but it was not on the market until March 1984.  

Mark’s projects outside of Dire Straits at this time included work with Phil Everly and Cliff Richard (She Means Nothing to Me – a single that reached the U.K. Top Ten) and writing, producing, and recording music for the film Local Hero.  The film score, released in April of 1983, earned a BAFTA nomination for Best Score for a Film the next year.

     The mid 1980s were no less busy for Knopfler as he scored two more films, Cal and Comfort and Joy.  Mark produced Bob Dylan’s Infidels album, Aztec Camera’s Knife, and he wrote Private Dancer for Tina Turner’s comeback album of the same name.  Lead guitar work for Bryan Ferry’s 1985 album, Boys and Girls followed.  Dire Straits began recording what would be their most notable (and fifth) album, Brothers in Arms in 1984.  Recorded at George Martin’s AIR Studios in Montserrat, the album was co-produced by Knopfler and Neil Dorfsman.  The band member roulette wheel continued to spin with two new keyboardists added to the touring mix as well as Mark’s longtime friend, New Yorker Jack Sonni on guitar.  Wither’s replacement, Terry Williams was let go during the Brothers sessions and studio ace Omar Hakim came in to record the album’s drum tracks in only three days.  Hakim then left for other commitments.  Williams was back on the drum stool for the subsequent Brothers in Arms tour that spanned 1985-1986.

     The word ‘blockbuster’ has been applied to the Brothers album.  The international sensation has sold more than 30 million copies and by 2006, it was the fourth best selling album in UK chart history.  Money for Nothing was the first video played on MTV in Britain and the album was the first CD to sell a million copies.  If there had been previous doubts about how CDs would be accepted by music fans, Dire Straits certainly erased them.  With Money, So Far Away, and Walk of Life topping the charts, Dire Straits embarked on a tour of over 230 shows.  In the wake of this massive tour, the band went their separate ways and Knopfler turned his attention to more film soundtracks like The Princess Bride.

     When Dire Straits regrouped in June of 1988, it was for Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday tribute show at Wembley Stadium.  Headlining the bill, they were joined on stage by Eric Clapton who Knopfler had become close friends with by this time.  Jack Sonni and Terry Williams left the band soon after but it didn’t matter much as Mark announced the dissolution of the band in September.  Their Money for Nothing greatest hits would follow in October of 1988 and it raced straight to No. 1 on the UK charts.  The next year, Knopfler launched a little less mainstream group called the Notting Hillbillies and as the name suggests, they skewed heavily toward Americana, Folk, Blues, and Country music.  They toured behind the release of their only LP (Missing…Presumed Having a Good Time – March 1990).  

     A 1990 appearance at Knewworth as Dire Straits, again with Eric Clapton in tow, led to their long awaited follow up to Brothers (1991’s On Every Street).  While it wasn’t nearly as successful as Brothers, it spawned a 300 date tour that put the final nails in the Dire Straits’ coffin.  Illsley’s comments about the last tour summed it all up:  “Personal relationships were in trouble and it put a terrible strain on everybody, emotionally and physically.  We were changed by it.”  The band dissolved once and for all in 1995 and since then, Knopfler has shown no interest in going back.

     Knopfler took some time off before resuming his normal busy schedule of solo work.  1993 saw him awarded an honorary music degree from the University of Newcastle on Tyne and the release of two more live Dire Straits albums (On the Night and Live at the BBC).  In a documentary about the band, he stated, “I put the thing to bed because I wanted to get back to some kind of reality.  That kind of scale [both the band and the touring] is dehumanizing.”  Indeed, it took a full two years for him to recover both creatively and in his personal life.

      Even their election to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame couldn’t bring the band back together.  Knopfler skipped the induction (only John Illsley, Alan Clark, and Guy Fletcher attended) with Illsley noting again that, “Mark is not keen on a reunion.”  Unlike most inductions at this affair, Dire Straits was not presented by anyone (a first for the R’n’R Hall) nor did they perform.  In his 2021 biography (My Life in Dire Straits), he again mentioned how physically and emotionally beat up the band was after the 1992 world tour.  They were all glad to have reached the end of the band’s road and ‘pretty happy’ when it all came to an end.

     Knopfler knocked out three solo albums in pretty rapid succession in the early 2000s (Sailing to Philadelphia (2000), The Ragpicker’s Dream (2002), and Shangri-La (2004).  The first two are my particular favorites as are the two Roadrunning collaborations he did with Emmylou Harris (All the Roadrunning (2006) and Real Live Roadrunning (2006).  In all, he has ten solo albums in his catalog beyond the six he did with DS.  A complete compilation of all Mark’s work since the end of Dire Straits would consume more space than I have left so I will take the easy way out.  If you want all the details about his last 25 busy years, our friends at Wiki can accommodate you very nicely.

     If you are one of those players who prefer using picks, Knopfler acknowledged the advantages in the 1992 GP article:  “The best amplifiers are picks.  As soon as you lose the pick, you lose a lot of level.  It changes the tone and the legitimacy of what you do.  So if I am playing straight blues or something with my fingers on an electric guitar, I have to think slightly differently.  But I could never keep picks anyway, so I just play the way I do and dial up the right sound on the tube amp.” 

     Since Dire Straits first made the musical world sit up and take notice, there have been a lot of newer players who do not use picks.  I am willing to be a majority of them would cite Mark Knopfler as an inspiration.

 

Topo Piece Video:  Live at Wembley – Money For Nothin’ . . . and the chicks for free!