The Mark Knopfler interview
Fender Europe, 2003.
The article was removed from the Fender Europe website.
After the success of Mark Knopfler’s last solo album, the 3.5 million-selling Sailing To Philadelphia which featured one of the most successful duets of recent years with the great James Taylor, Knopfler is about to launch its follow-up.
Lyrically and musically, The Ragpicker’s Dream continues where Philadelphia left off and where Knopfler’s first solo album, Golden Heart, had begun. It comes full of themes and stories and the thumbnail sketches that characterise his best writing. And, of course, it brims with the most tasteful, tuneful and melodic guitar playing this side of anywhere.
Since Sultans Of Swing broke the established guitar hero mould with its clean, country-influenced Stratocaster licks way back in 1978, Knopfler’s playing has never stood still. His ability to coax the sweetest tones from a range of beautiful vintage instruments is perhaps unsurpassed. His friendship with the late, great Chet Atkins has added to his palette of styles, and he admitted to us that he still checks out guitar books to further his musical knowledge.
Mark has also reformed his two old bands, Dire Straits and The Notting Hillbillies, for a series of concerts in aid of a number of worthy causes.
“The way that came about was that a neighbour asked if I’d do one charity concert and I said yes. Then I thought, What’s the point of getting the Billies and the Straits together and just doing one show? All that rehearsing would have been pointless for one gig, so I got in touch with various other charities and we did four shows instead of one. Nothing that complicated.”
The Ragpicker’s Dream has a rootsy, intimate quality to it, but it seems even now there’s pressure on the guitarist to recreate his Dire Straits themes and sounds.
“There’s probably an element of that,” muses Mark. “I think there might even have been a bit of that in the way Chuck Ainley, my co-producer and very good buddy, wanted to record the sound. I think even Chuck was trying to get a sound like Philadelphia, while I wanted it to sound more like it actually turned out. I wanted to get the drums further back and record in another kind of way. I think now we understand each other a lot better.”
Reaction to the album seems to be very positive.
“Unbelievably so,” agrees Mark, now almost animated, “which actually surprised me, because I thought they’d want it to be a bit more rocky. Philadelphia would have sounded more like this if I’d had anything to do with it.”
Mark’s comments about the album’s more laid back sound are confirmed by a distinct folk element creeping in to certain numbers.
“Well, a couple of the tracks start with Richard Bennett strumming his bouzouki and that certainly helps in that regard,” he elaborates. “It’s a wonderful instrument and I first encountered it when I ran into Donal Lunney from Dublin. My good friend Paul Brady helped put together a group of heavyweight Irish musicians for Golden Heart, and it was then that I realised how important an instrument the bouzouki is. So Richard learnt how to play it so we could do those songs live, bought a cheap one which he still has, and it ended up starring on several new tracks.”
Whether deliberate or not, there are also tips of the Knopfler hat to some of his heroes, including Hank Williams (lap steel and fiddle on Daddy’s Gone To Knoxville), Eric Clapton (some bluesy lead in Fare Thee Well Northumberland) and of course, Hank Marvin.
“Oh yes, the Hank Marvin thing,” smiles Knopfler. “That sound at the end of You Don’t Know You’re Born was done on a 1954 Strat that was given to me by a great friend. It just seemed the right thing. It’s one of those guitars that just has to have heavy strings on it a big wound third. It’s actually number 59, made in the third month of production, and it’s not really for playing fast. I’ve also got a ’54 Telecster.
Speaking of that famous red Strat, the one responsible for those classic Sultans Of Swing licks, has the old girl been retired now?
“Oh no, I’ve been using it. The only reason I didn’t use it on the recent charity shows is I was playing the new ones to sell afterwards for the charities.”
As we’re talking about old Fenders and new Fenders, what does Mark make of the Relic phenomenon?
“I think they’re fine,” he replies. “Actually, the instruments themselves are very high quality indeed. I tried a swamp ash-bodied Tele the other day and it was fantastic. Of the ‘stone-washed’ guitars, as I call them, those Fender Relics are fantastic.”
As our enjoyable chat with one of the most individual and creative guitarists of the last 25 years ends, we ask if there’s anything ore he’d like to say about the new album he’s so quietly happy about.
“It’s the closest I’ve come to making a record that sounds like I want it to sound,” he says in summing up. “It’s recorded the way I like to record – 16 track analogue – and the themes are the same as always: work and travel. The things that broke my heart as a young man are the same things that broke my heart today. But after a while you’ve got to stop talking about it and let the music speak.” Hear hear!
MK studio diary 2011 by Guy Fletcher
Mark and Guy are back in the studio working on a new record
www.guyfletcher.co.uk