Mark Knopfler

A

azraelswings

New member
One of my favorite artists covered "Romeo and Juliet," that song rocks my world. Any Knopfler fans, please throw me your opinions of good places to start listening to his work.
 
First off, with Knopf, you're likely to get amazing guitar sounds before you get amazing lyrics...but I suppose the impact of that will depend on what you consider the most important aspect of a composition.

Tunes that I like:

Lady Writer
Love Over Gold (Live)
Brothers in Arms
Tunnel of Love
Why Aye Man
Money for Nothin
Baloney Again
Sailing to Philadelphia - this one's cool
Sultans of Swing (what a tune)


His more recent stuff is much more folky, reminds me of John Martyn
 
I agree about On Every Street. I really like that album.
The drumming is very good on the tracks where Manu Katche plays.
Vince Gill is on there as is Jeff Porcaro.
Paul Franklin does some great steel guitar work.
It's considered a Dire Straits album but the extra personnel make it very special.
Check out the guitar riffs in Calling Elvis and the long outro is very cool.

Of his solo stuff I like The Ragpickers Dream.
 
I know the bloke who wrote the lyrics to Romeo and Juliet (and I don't mean William Shakespeare).

His name is Martin Spellman and he wrote it as a poem to his girlfriend, but thought the words were quite nice and sent it off somewhere, and it got picked up Dire Straights.

I used to live a few doors away from him.

I also used to live (in a different house) opposite a bloke who was married to Mark Knopflers sister.

Small place, England. :)
 
Last edited:
Knopfler did an album with Chet Atkins (isn't he Mark's father-in-law?). As you can imagine, great guitar playing. I forget the name of the album, sorry. If you like Knopfler, definitely worth listening to.

Cheers.
 
For Dire Straits, listen to "On The Night", the live album. It is a good mix of songs from their various albums, and it will give you a place to start, depending on which songs stand out to you. Also veru good lap-steel on those songs.

Otherwise, I would just start at the beginning of the catelogue and move forward... they aren't a group that has so many albums that you can't plow right through. There are a fair amount, don't get me wrong, but as I sit here thinking about my favorite songs, none of them are congregated on any one album, so its kinda mix-and-match, unfortunately.
 
Chili said:
Knopfler did an album with Chet Atkins (isn't he Mark's father-in-law?). As you can imagine, great guitar playing. I forget the name of the album, sorry. If you like Knopfler, definitely worth listening to.

Cheers.
Click to expand...

That's called Neck and Neck, and yes it has some great playing!
 
I really like the Live Alchemy album as well as the On the Night album. Both are excellent live albums with a good cross-section of material.

On the "solo" side, i want to plug Sailing to Philadelphia......some really great tunes on that one, but aside from "What it Is", it sounds nothing like Dire Straits.


cheers,
wade
 
mrface2112 said:
On the "solo" side, i want to plug Sailing to Philadelphia......some really great tunes on that one, but aside from "What it Is", it sounds nothing like Dire Straits.
Click to expand...

Spot-on - I love his solo stuff, and it is definitely very different from the Strait stuff. I think this is a good album to start with if you want to explore his solo stuff. Golden Heart was also a good soundtrack, if you want to go that route as well.
 
I like mostly everything he's done. I'm a fan of all the Dire Straits stuff and all the solo stuff. He's been my guitar idol since I was a kid.

Amazing that he can do all the he does without a pick.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top