Mark Freuder Knopfler (born 12 August 1949) is a British musician. He was the lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of the rock band Dire Straits from 1977 to 1995, and he is one of the two members who stayed throughout the band's existence, along with the bassist John Illsley. After Dire Straits dissolved, he pursued a solo career and is now an independent artist.
Knopfler was born in Glasgow, and was raised in Newcastle. After graduating from the University of Leeds and working for three years as a college lecturer, Knopfler co-founded Dire Straits with his younger brother, David Knopfler. The band recorded six albums, including Brothers in Arms (1985), one of the best-selling albums in history. After Dire Straits disbanded in 1995, Knopfler began a solo career, and has produced ten solo albums to date. He has composed and produced film scores for nine films, including Local Hero (1983), Cal (1984), The Princess Bride (1987), Wag the Dog (1997) and Altamira (2016). He has produced albums for Tina Turner, Bob Dylan, and Randy Newman.
Described by Classic Rock as a virtuoso, Knopfler is a fingerstyle guitarist and was ranked 27th on Rolling Stones list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". With Dire Straits, Knopfler sold between 100 million and 120 million records. A four-time Grammy Award winner, Knopfler is the recipient of the Edison Award, the Steiger Award and the Ivor Novello Award, as well as holding three honorary doctorate degrees in music from universities in the United Kingdom. Knopfler was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Dire Straits in 2018.
Biography 1949–1976: Early life Mark Freuder Knopfler was born on 12 August 1949 in Glasgow, Scotland, to an English mother, Louisa Mary (), and a Hungarian Jewish father, Erwin Knopfler. His mother was a teacher, and his father was an architect and a chess player who left his native Hungary in 1939 to flee the Nazis. Knopfler later described his father as a Marxist agnostic.Irwin, Colin. Dire Straits. Orion, 1994. .
The Knopflers originally lived in Glasgow but the family moved to Briarfield Road, Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, in North East England, closer to Knopfler's mother's hometown of Blyth, when Mark was seven years old. Mark attended Bearsden Primary School in Scotland for two years and later in Newcastle attended Archibald Street School and Gosforth Grammar School along with his brother, David.
Originally inspired by his uncle Kingsley's harmonica and boogie-woogie piano playing, Mark soon became familiar with many different styles of music. Although he hounded his father for an expensive Fiesta Red Fender Stratocaster electric guitar just like Hank Marvin's, he eventually bought a twin-pick-up Höfner Super Solid for £50 ().
In 1963, when he was 13, he took a Saturday job at the Newcastle Evening Chronicle newspaper earning six shillings and sixpence. Here he met the poet Basil Bunting, who was a copy editor. In 2015, Knopfler wrote a track in tribute to him. At this time, Knopfler got around the country largely by hitchhiking, and also hitched through Europe a number of times.
During the 1960s, Knopfler formed and joined several bands and listened to singers like Elvis Presley and guitarists Chet Atkins, Scotty Moore, B. B. King, Django Reinhardt, Hank Marvin, and James Burton. At the age of 16, he made a local television appearance as part of a harmony duo, with his classmate Sue Hercombe.
In 1968, after studying journalism for a year at Harlow College, Knopfler was hired as a junior reporter in Leeds for the Yorkshire Evening Post. During this time, he made the acquaintance of local furniture restorer, country blues enthusiast and part-time performer Steve Phillips, one year his senior, from whose record collection and guitar style Knopfler acquired a good knowledge of early blues artists and their styles. The two formed a duo called "The Duolian String Pickers", which performed in local folk and acoustic blues venues. Two years later, Knopfler decided to further his education, and later graduated with a degree in English at the University of Leeds.
In April 1970, while living in Leeds, he recorded a demo disc of an original song he had written, "Summer's Coming My Way". The recording included Knopfler (guitar and vocals), Steve Phillips (second guitar), Dave Johnson (bass), and Paul Granger (percussion). Johnson, Granger, and vocalist Mick Dewhirst played with Knopfler in a band called Silverheels; Phillips was later to rejoin Knopfler in the short lived side exercise from Dire Straits, The Notting Hillbillies.
Upon graduation in 1973, Knopfler moved to London and joined a band based in High Wycombe called Brewers Droop. This group had issued studio-recorded material before Knopfler joined, and went into the studio while Knopfler was a member—but Brewer's Droop material with Knopfler remained unissued until appearing on their 1989 archival album The Booze Brothers.
One night, while spending time with friends, the only guitar available was an old acoustic with a badly warped neck that had been strung with extra-light strings to make it usable. Even so, he found it impossible to play unless he finger-picked it, leading to the development of his signature playing style. He said in a later interview, "That was where I found my 'voice' on guitar." After a brief stint with Brewers Droop, Knopfler took a job as a lecturer at Loughton College in Essex – a position he held for three years. Throughout this time, he continued performing with local pub bands, including the Café Racers.
By the mid-1970s, Knopfler devoted much of his musical energies to his group, the Café Racers. His brother David moved to London, where he shared a flat with John Illsley, a guitarist who changed over to playing bass guitar. In April 1977, Mark moved out of his flat in Buckhurst Hill and moved in with David and Illsley. The three began playing music together, and soon Mark invited Illsley to join the Café Racers.
1977–1995: Dire Straits
Dire Straits' first demos were recorded in three sessions in 1977, with David Knopfler as rhythm guitarist, John Illsley as bass guitarist, and Pick Withers as drummer. On 27 July 1977, they recorded the demo tapes of five songs: "Wild West End", "Sultans of Swing", "Down to the Waterline", "Sacred Loving" (a David Knopfler song), and "Water of Love". They later recorded "Southbound Again", "In the Gallery", and "Six Blade Knife" for BBC Radio London—and, finally, on 9 November, made demo tapes of "Setting Me Up", "Eastbound Train", and "Real Girl". Many of these songs reflect Knopfler's experiences in Newcastle, Leeds, and London, and were featured on their debut album, the eponymous Dire Straits, which was released in the following year: "Down to the Waterline" recalled images of life in Newcastle; "In The Gallery" is a tribute to a Leeds sculptor and artist named Harry Phillips (father of Steve Phillips); and "Lions", "Wild West End", and "Eastbound Train" were all drawn from Knopfler's early days in the capital.Peter Frame (1999) Pete Frame's rockin' around Britain: rock'n'roll landmarks of the UK and Ireland, p. 182. Music Sales Group. Retrieved: 30 December 2010.High fidelity, Volume 29, Issues 1–6, p. 102. Audiocom, 1979.
The group’s first album Dire Straits was released in June 1978 to slow response to begin with, but when "Sultans of Swing" was re-released as a single in January 1979, the album became a chart hit in the Netherlands and album sales took off – first across Europe, and then in the United States and Canada, and finally the UK. In June 1979 the group’s second album, Communiqué, produced by Jerry Wexler and Barry Beckett, was released.
Their third album, Making Movies, released in October 1980, moved towards more complex arrangements and production, which continued for the remainder of the group's career. The album included many of Mark Knopfler's most personal compositions, most notably "Romeo and Juliet" and "Tunnel of Love", with its intro "The Carousel Waltz" by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, which also featured in the 1982 Richard Gere film An Officer and a Gentleman. There were frequent personnel changes within Dire Straits from 1980 onwards, with Mark Knopfler and John Illsley the only members to remain throughout the group's 18-year existence. In 1980 whilst the recording sessions for Making Movies were taking place, tensions between the Knopfler brothers reached a point where David Knopfler decided to leave the band for a solo career. The remaining trio continued the album, with Roy Bittan from Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band guesting on keyboards and session guitarist Sid McGinnis on rhythm guitar, although he was uncredited on the album. After the recording sessions were completed, keyboardist Alan Clark and Californian guitarist Hal Lindes joined Dire Straits as full-time members for the On Location tour of Europe, North America, and Oceania.
In September 1982, the group's fourth studio album Love Over Gold was released. This featured the tracks "Private Investigations", "Telegraph Road", "Industrial Disease", "It Never Rains", and the title track of the album, "Love Over Gold". Drummer Pick Withers announced his departure from the band after the recording sessions of the album were completed.
In early 1983, with Love Over Gold still in the albums charts, the band released a four-song EP titled ExtendedancEPlay. Featuring the hit single "Twisting by the Pool", this was the first output from Dire Straits that featured new drummer Terry Williams, (formerly of Rockpile and Man). An eight month long Love over Gold Tour followed which finished with two sold-out concerts at London's Hammersmith Odeon on 22 and 23 July 1983. In March 1984 the double album Alchemy Live was released, which documented the recordings of these final two live shows. It was also released in VHS video and reached number three in the UK Albums Chart, and was reissued in DVD and Blu-ray format in 2010.
During 1983 and 1984, Mark Knopfler was also involved with other projects outside of Dire Straits, some of which other band members contributed towards. Knopfler and Terry Williams played on Phil Everly's and Cliff Richard's song "She Means Nothing To Me", which reached the Top 10 in the UK Singles Chart in February 1983, taken from the album Phil Everly. Knopfler had also expressed his interest writing film music, and after producer David Puttnam responded he wrote and produced the music score to the film Local Hero. The album was released in April 1983 and received a BAFTA award nomination for Best Score for a Film the following year. Alan Clark also contributed, and other Dire Straits members Illsley, Lindes and Williams played on one track, "Freeway Flyer", and Gerry Rafferty contributed lead vocals on "The Way It Always Starts". The closing track on the album and on the credits in the film is the instrumental "Going Home: Theme of the Local Hero" which was released as a single and became a popular live staple for Dire Straits, entering the band's repertoire from 1983 onwards.
"Local Hero" was followed in 1984 by Knopfler's music scores for the films Cal and Comfort and Joy, both of which also featured Terry Williams, as well as keyboardist Guy Fletcher. Also during this time Knopfler produced Bob Dylan's Infidels album, as well as Knife by Aztec Camera. He also wrote the song "Private Dancer" which was recorded by Tina Turner for her comeback album of the same name, to which other Dire Straits members John Illsley, Alan Clark, Hal Lindes and Terry Williams contributed the backing track. Knopfler also contributed lead guitar to Bryan Ferry's album Boys and Girls, released in June 1985.