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- Herausgeber: tredition
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
The most comprehensive 500-page book about Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits (written by a real author, no AI). Sensitive storyteller, master of subtle virtuosity, relaxed superstar – Knopfler's career breaks almost all records. Renowned Swiss musician and author Richard Koechli dives deep into the universe of the British songwriter and singer with that unmistakable guitar sound, to pay tribute to his life's work in meticulous detail. With passion, know-how, respectfully critical and in a light-footed, humorous language, he examines Mark Knopfler's art and philosophy, the influence of his forerunners and companions, the background of music history in the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s. Dire Straits' story alone takes up 500 pages; a second volume about Mark Knopfler's subsequent solo career will follow in a later edition. It is an inspiring multimedia adventure with countless anecdotes, background stories and audio-video examples; a must read for Mark Knopfler fans as well as for guitar geeks, audiophiles and lovers of music history. (English translation of the original German edition)
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Seitenzahl: 830
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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Volume1
DIRE STRAITS
1949 – 1995
by Richard Koechli
Imprint
© 2025 Richard Koechli
Author's website: www.richardkoechli.ch/en
Author of the original German edition: Richard Koechli
English translation: Richard Koechli and Michael Lohr
Proofreader: Michael Lohr
Typesetting, layout, cover design: Richard Koechli
Some of the graphic elements are licensed under:
shutterstock.com 2473379703 / 2444015075 (Burbuzin / THP Creative)
Printed and distributed on behalf of the author by:tredition GmbH, Heinz-Beusen-Stieg 5, 22926 Ahrensburg,Germany
ISBN Softcover: 978-3-384-55244-0
ISBN Hardcover: 978-3-384-55245-7
ISBN E-Book: 978-3-384-55246-4
This work, including its parts, is protected by copyright. The author is responsible for the contents. Any use without his consent is prohibited. The publication and distribution are made on behalf of the author, who can be contacted at: Richard Koechli, Seehalde 22, 6243 Egolzwil, Switzerland. Contact address according to EU General Product Safety Regulation: [email protected]
A big thank you to everyone who helped me write this book! Executive Producers: Walter Köchli (my father), Hape Schuwey (my manager), Otti Wiederkehr, Fausto Medici. Sponsors: Peter Jordi, Franz Wolfisberg, Emmanuel B. de Haller, Peter Emch, Philippe Schneeberger. I would also like to thank: all journalists, media, fans and collectors who allowed me to inform myself about Mark Knopfler and his music (I have mentioned the relevant sources in the book as precisely as possible), Michael Lohr for the proofreading and support with the English translation. Thanks to Mark Knopfler for his life's work, and to everyone who has supported him. Thanks to everyone who gives me inspiration and joie de vivre every day, especially my wife Evelyne Rosier, my parents Walter & Marlise Köchli, and my band Blue Roots Company. And thanks to the Lord and all good spirits.
Inhalt
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Preface
Music as a Mirror
Beginning of a Life
Lonnie Donegan and Chris Barber
Hank Marvin
Bert Weedon
Mark Knopfler's first guitar
The 1960s – Mark's early years as a guitarist
The very first recording
The Kingston Trio
Mark discovers the fingerpicking Holy Grail
Mark becomes an adult
Stephen ‘Steve’ Phillips
Mark moves to London
What happened just before the breakthrough?
J.J. Cale ( John Weldon Cale)
Dire Straits – a Lightning Start by Chance?
The famous first demo recordings
Charlie Gillett
The rising star Dire Straits
The Phenomenal Debut Album
The story of the Sultans of Swing
‘Water Of Love’ – the great inner drought
The rocket that didn't take off immediately
A live band, an album band
‘Live At The BBC’ – pure stage power
Next stop America
The prophet is at last honoured in his own country
When concert venues are bursting at the seams…
‘Communiqué’ – the Curse of the Second Album?
The Ultimate Accolade: ‘Slow Train Coming’ (Bob Dylan)
‘Making Movies’ – the Turning Point
David Knopfler leaves the band – the story of a brothers' quarrel
The best Dire Straits album?
Roy Bittan – the golden touch
Tunnel Of Love
‘Love over Gold’ – with One Foot in Psychedelic Rock
Once again: new musicians in the band
Pick Withers leaves the band
‘Local Hero’ – a Return to the Land of Fairies and Druids
‘Infidels’ – Mark Knopfler Produces Bob Dylan
‘Alchemy’ – a Live Album as a Legacy
‘Cal’ – Mark Becomes a Celtic Music Ambassador
Paul Brady and Liam O'Flynn
No Time to Rest – Mark Knopfler in the Service of Others
‘Brothers in Arms’ – Icarus Flying towards the Sun
The temporary end of Dire Straits
‘On Every Street’ – a Last Gasp
Final Word
More from Richard Koechli
Mark Knopfler (Volume 1, Dire Straits) – the real 500-page book
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Preface
Final Word
Mark Knopfler (Volume 1, Dire Straits) – the real 500-page book
Cover
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The 28 best Laidback-songs and instrumentals from the 35-year career of Swiss Blues Award winner Richard Koechli. A tribute to the two great masters of the Laidback universe: J.J. Cale and Mark Knopfler…
Free download of the mp3 album (including bonus song):
www.richardkoechli.ch/images/laidback.pdf
01 Don't Go To Strangers ( J.J. Cale), 2020
02 Lucerne Is A Blues Town (R. Koechli), 2014
03 Silence (R. Koechli), 2008
04 Mister Marketing Man (R. Koechli), 2008
05 Sensitive Kind ( J.J. Cale), 2020
06 Blessed Be The Name (Trad.), 2022
07 Six String Spell (R. Koechli), 2016
08 Lord I Just Can't Keep From Crying (B.W. Johnson), 2022
09 Feel Like Going Home (Charlie Rich), 2022
10 I Got Life (R. Koechli), 2018
11 Le Jardin De Tes Sens (R. Koechli), 2018
12 Samhain (R. Koechli), 2002
13 Blue Collar Worker (R. Koechli), 2018
14 Laid-Back Sur Hamac (R. Koechli), 2008
15 Easy Road (R. Koechli), 2011
16 Carry On (J.J. Cale), 2020
17 My Slide Is Crying (R. Koechli), 2008
18 Pedro (R. Koechli, E. Rosier), 2018
19 The Unsung King Tampa Red (R. Koechli), 2018
20 Goalies Intro (R. Koechli), 2013
21 Love Endures Everything (R. Koechli), 2023
22 Local Hero (Mark Knopfler), 1997
23 Lily Of The West (Trad.), 2005
24 Der Barde Taliesin (R. Koechli), 2002
25 Irish Man (R. Koechli), 2018
26 Holy Blues (R. Koechli), 2022
27 Down In The Valley To Pray (Trad.), 2022
28 S' Grossmuetti Zöglet (R. Koechli), 1997
Bonus: Sultans Of Swing (Dire Straits), 1991 (live)
Preface
What makes a person? What shapes us? How do fairytale careers come about? The fact that there are a thousand answers to this question is what makes life exciting. Even if, from my own point of view, some of these explanations may fall into the category of ‘nonsense!’ (‘baloney again’ Mark Knopfler would probably say…), it seems to be best to put on the table the whole range of answers to the question of what exactly makes Knopfler a songwriter and musician, in no particular order – ideally without evaluating them. Mark Knopfler has an audience of millions, an extremely loyal one. Each and every one of these people has their own life story in which, at some point, the MK penny dropped because a song or a guitar note by the successful British musician opened the heart and touched it forever.
We sometimes hear that he is the best guitarist of all time, the greatest genius in music history. Or, in some forum (in response to the question of whether Knopfler is religious), a fan's answer: ‘Mark Knopfler is greater than God and Jesus together.’
Phrases like this can be shocking, but they basically just show how unbelievably strongly music can touch people. We know from countless cases that adoration can take truly religious proportions. Hey, what do you think it's like in the camp of die-hard Bob Dylan fans, for example? Discipleship! There is no discussion about how good Dylan and his voice really is in a particular song – Dylan songs are a revelation per se, amen.
I can respect that without a problem. Nevertheless, I want to discuss it! I want to try to understand music and its power to move people as deeply and nuanced as possible. I want to decode the phenomenon that is Mark Knopfler, want to analyse his musical life's work and place it in a context of music history – but definitely not to take the magic out of it.
On the contrary! This kind of study helps me to understand music even better, to experience it even more intensely, to celebrate it!
This also helps me as a musician. Through the work on my numerous books about great or forgotten music legends, I have learned more as a guitarist, singer and songwriter than in a thousand hours of practice. Why does a very specific note at a very specific point in a song move people? How is it supposed to sound in order to touch people? Of course, these are often simply questions of playing technique and music theory; however, as interesting as they may be, such questions are not the main focus of this book. Although guitar fanatics will also get their money's worth, I am not writing a guitar tutorial here; I have written enough of those in the past. This book is about bigger questions: How does inspiration arise, where does it come from and how wonderfully interwoven music history is.
I hope you will join me on this journey through Mark Knopfler's life's work. This is not meant to be a biography, and certainly not an authorised one, although I will also be placing events from Mark's biography (there are hardly any secrets here) in their musical context. However, the music is always at the centre of my journey – and in Mark's case, there is more than enough substance. I'm not interested in revelations, scandals or cheap celebrity stories; there's hardly anything of that sort to be found in Mark's case anyway. Blind worship, however, is not my credo either; I can understand this adoration and partly relate to it, but I want to get to the bottom of his life's work from the perspective of a curious, passionate musician and a critical music journalist. I hope the mix of these two levels does justice to Mark Knopfler.
Artists are shaped by their own lives, by their environment and by everything that has happened before their time. No one in this world reinvents music; everything is interwoven, linked and connected to the past. That's why I dig quite a bit here in general music history; I don't look at Mark Knopfler in isolation, I'm also interested in his fellow musicians and the music-historical circumstances that shaped him.
Hanspeter ‘Düsi’ Kuenzler, the wonderful Londonbased freelance Swiss journalist, conducted several lengthy interviews with Mark Knopfler. Düsi is giving us these exclusive interviews for the book here, just as a gift – amazing! I will quote from them and from countless other media reports where appropriate. In one of these interviews, conducted by Hanspeter Kuenzler at the legendary British Grove Studios in 2018, Mark Knopfler ended the long but highly entertaining conversation with an answer that says it all to Düsi's question: ‘What about other people's records? Do they give you new ideas?’
Mark Knopfler: ‘Oh, yes. I think so. I absolutely think so. It's a good thing, too. I mean, that's what they're for. That's what it's all for. You drop a stone into a well, and ripples come out, and then they come back, you know. And also, it makes other people do things. You're making other people — other people are creating off what you've done. It's wonderful.’
It is wonderful! Let's look and listen to all those waves; those that reached Knopfler and those with which Knopfler in turn reached others. Of course, we will listen to tons of audio examples and watch videos that I refer to, because only in this way music can fully reach our soul. There is hardly a sound or video recording that cannot be found on the internet. Displaying the corresponding QR codes in the book would, of course, be a tempting modern idea – however, I have had bad experiences with this in previous publications because internet addresses can change from time to time and thus QR codes suddenly no longer work. That is why I have basically listed the titles (in italics) here, under which you can easily find the articles on the internet at any time (provided they have not been deleted).
Since my book is about music and nothing but music, I have also decided against including photos. Ultimately, it is a question of concept; an illustrated book naturally has its charm, but the visual language competes with the musical and textual language. Mark Knopfler is not a photo model, he is a musician and songwriter; we all know what he looked like back then and what he looks like today. It doesn't matter to me, and it would make the book unnecessarily more expensive and legally more complicated.
Okay, let's go! I am looking forward to our journey together with the passion of a child, dear readers. I originally wanted to write a single book about Mark Knopfler's entire career – as you can see, this life's work now easily fills two extensive books…
Sincerely,
Richard Koechli
Music as a mirror
As stated in the preface: artists are shaped by their own lives, by their environment and by everything that happened before their time.
What made Mark Knopfler the person he became? We are not asking these questions out of a desire to snoop; we are not voyeurs. It's about music! An artist's privacy deserves to be respected. Mark Knopfler is one of those stars who appreciate having a beer in a pub without being disturbed and without having people fall to their knees screaming ‘Oh my God’ on the street. The attitude of wanting to remain unrecognised probably has something to do with Knopfler's approach as a songwriter, too. He has the mindset of a journalist (which he actually was for a while before his career in music); Mark prefers to listen to other people's conversations discreetly and respectfully – it's there where he can get inpiration for his wonderful songs about the feelings, worries, hardships and experiences of ‘ordinary’ people. It is the perspective of a neutral observer.
As neutral as possible, but at least not judgemental. Subjectivity always comes into play when we try to put ourselves in other people's shoes, interpret them or even try to explain them. When Mark Knopfler turns other people's stories into songs, he doesn't ask them whether ‘it's okay, do you recognise yourselves in the mirror, can I publish the story like this?’ He just does it, sends the songs on their way. In a way, I'm doing the same now. My view of Mark Knopfler the musician and songwriter is biassed by my subjectivity, and I send this subjective view on its way without asking him ‘is it okay?’ first. That is the difference from an authorised biography. I do not have any conversations with Mark Knopfler, my English would not be good enough for that anyway, and in the worst case it could even destroy the ‘song’ that I want to write about him here. I observe Mark and his life's work in a way that he himself observes people for his songs.
If I am interested in certain background information in addition to his music, it is because I find it exciting and inspiring to puzzle over how an artist's work is intertwined with his life and the paths he has travelled. How every aspect and facet influences all the others. Music is more than a simple craft; music is a mirror, a kind of diary of life. This also is in line with my philosophical assumption that we evolve not only through practice and striving. Everything you think and do in life (how you do it) also mysteriously affects your work – that has always been my credo as a musician. That's why many artists become better, more mature and more expressive with age, even though they usually work less hard at it compared to their earlier days.
Of course, some kind of golden thread can't be wrong in such an endeavour. Even if ‘time’ is not the only level – the best and most useful thread is still to proceed chronologically. Looking back is a popular pastime in old age anyway, and it really can do you good; most dreams and influences come from our childhood and youth. Connecting with them retrospectively is like religion in its true meaning: Latin ‘religare’ (to connect, to bind, to descend); reconnecting with our origins, in other words. Our existence cries out for it.
Okay, here we go. A brief look at Mark Knopfler's childhood and youth…
Beginning of a life
In the timeline on Mark Knopfler's website, there used to be a simple sentence at the start of our story (the timeline is no longer on Mark's site):
1949 Mark is born in Glasgow, to an English mother and Hungarian émigré father
Well, there's not a great deal of information in this formulation. It's quite possible that Mark Knopfler doesn't consider the exact date of birth to be very important and perhaps doesn't attach much importance to astrology either. I can understand that; as we know, astrology is not a science, but rather esotericism and the desire to make oracles. But why not just have Mark Knopfler's date of birth interpreted for fun? He was born on 12 August 1949, which makes him a Leo. Without knowing his ascendant (the zodiac sign at the exact minute of birth), it's best to have a professional give us a brief reading; the author, journalist, astrologer and tarot card reader Danijela Pilic describes the Leo as follows on www.glamour.de:
The zodiac sign Leo (23 July – 22 August) is a diva who radiates warmth and creativity, a great personality, made for the stage. The Leo wants to stand out and can be quite proud. Other character traits: The Leo is strong, selfconfident, generous and loyal: He loves his friends and is happy for their success. The Leo wants to win and does not take it well when his ego is hurt. He loves drama, luxury and travelling.
It's remarkable, this reading. Warmth, creativity, great personality, made for the stage, self-confident, generous, loyal, a born winner. It seems that many things apply to Mark Knopfler, at least from my perception. Astonishing, I gladly admit.
However, it can never and ever be an explanation for his music and success. With all due respect to the stars, free will was at play in millions of small and large events that had an impact on Mark Knopfler's life – the free will of Mark Knopfler and that of all the people or beings (such as cities, landscapes, etc.) that shaped Mark and his music.
Our planet is a playground for vibes. Thousands and thousands of moods, vibrations and feelings – every moment and every place in the world has a distinctive emotional atmosphere from which we can never completely isolate ourselves. In childhood, these vibes penetrate particularly easily into the human soul to shape it, even if we hardly perceive this consciously and usually recognize it only later.
To even begin to understand Mark Knopfler, we need to ask: what were the vibes that shaped him? What happened in Mark's life? Where did he grow up? Who were his parents? What kind of people were the ones who shaped and inspired him? What happened in music history before him? I am quite convinced that every life begins anew, that we are not just a link in a pre-programmed chain – and yet we are also this link, we are connected to our ancestors and to history in our genes and in our minds.
Of course, you can easily get lost in endless details. I'll just touch on these questions here, that's exciting enough.
His father, Erwin Knopfler (1909-1993), came from Miskolc (Hungary). He was an architect and a chess player; a successful chess player, he came second in the 1953 Scottish Championships. An exciting combination: as an architect, he was committed to the forms, aesthetics and meaningfulness of buildings; as a chess player, he was committed to clear and strategic thinking. If this has had an effect on Mark Knopfler's character, which I am convinced it has, these are qualities that have certainly helped him to create his life's work. The aesthetics and love of form in his music, as well as the sense of purpose, are unmistakable. And there's no question in my mind that the cleverness and foresight with which Mark has managed his career with great success (in all areas, including his own fashion line and gin drink) also has something to do with his father's genes.
And maybe even his resilience. A buzzword, it means psychological resistibility; the ability to overcome crises and use them as an opportunity for personal growth. In Erwin Knopfler's time, this term was not yet in use, but the ability was of course part of the arsenal of virtues. As a political prisoner in the 1930s, Erwin Knopfler played chess with paper scraps. He fled from the Nazis in 1939, leaving Hungary for Glasgow, Scotland. There, Erwin Knopfler was a member of the Communist Party for a while and married a local teacher. Mark Knopfler later described his father as a Marxist agnostic.
That's interesting; spiritual things can also be inherited, so to speak. Mark's fan base is not sure exactly where his spiritual home is, because he never speaks clearly about it in public. However, it is actually suspected that he is an agnostic. So someone who thinks that the existence of God is possible, but considers it unnecessary to argue about it.
Nevertheless, some fans do occasionally argue about what Mark Knopfler might believe in. Not rarely, they try to lure their idol into their own boat. Jewish believers would like to see him in their ranks (Mark's father was of Jewish origin), others pray for him to meet Jesus Christ, and certain atheists try to drag him to their side (www.celebatheists.com/wiki/ Mark_Knopfler). That's just the way it is, everyone wants to win him over – I'm not mocking that at all, I see it as a sign of how much people love Mark Knopfler and his music. Mark himself, however, remains silent on such topics. There are songs of his with a few brief references to Christian values and formulations, but most likely he does not refer to himself, but to the protagonists in the stories told. For example, in the song ‘Baloney Again’ (from the 2000 album ‘Sailing To Philadelphia’), where he sings about African-American gospel musicians who are treated badly and discriminated against on racial grounds during their US tour.
Knopfler expressed himself most concretely when he was interviewed by David White (Radio 4MMM FM in Brisbane, Australia) on 10 November 1991. When asked whether he believed in fate, he answered in typical agnostic speech – and somehow also in the style of a mystic, when he emphasised several times that we don't have to have an answer to every question, and that it would spoil a lot if we knew exactly. The famous wisdom of not knowing, which at best can pave the way to humility.
Well, we were talking about inheritance. Of course, countries, places and the music traditions associated with them have an effect on the human soul. And perhaps something like this can be inherited later, at least to a limited extent or indirectly. Hungary, his father's homeland, has a wonderful musical culture; it is quite conceivable that a pinch of it got stuck in Mark Knopfler's universe. Since the 19th century, Hungarian folk music, as played by Roma, has been widely regarded as ‘gypsy music’ (gypsy is the now controversial term for Roma, Sinti and travellers). In any case, Mark Knopfler became a travelling, itinerant musician; the spirit of long and extensive world tours is indeed somehow similar to that of a travelling musician. Even if ‘gypsies’ don't play in large halls, stay in fivestar hotels and travel first class by plane.
But I am thinking even further ahead to a possible musical, melodic parallel. There is a particular scale, namely the ‘gipsy scale’) or also called the ‘Hungarian scale’. It is a variant of the minor scale and corresponds to the ‘Harmonic Minor’ with an additional raised fourth degree. Don't be put off by the technical jargon; it's just a musician's term. In melodies, the ‘Hungarian scale’ – similar to harmonic minor – has a slightly oriental flavour. Harmonic minor is used a lot in Western music, but gypsy minor is comparatively rare. But it does crop up now and then, for example when a piece is played in harmonic minor by a blues-loving musician keen on blue notes. Coincidentally, one of these legendary blue notes is exactly the same as the raised fourth degree of the Hungarian scale. Bingo!
So what? Did Knopfler ever play that in a song? Of course he did, from the very beginning! There are countless songs of his in minor keys, most of them in harmonic minor, which means a major chord on the fifth chord degree. In ‘Sultans Of Swing’, for example, it is in D minor harmonic, on the fifth chord stage Knopfler plays an A major (not an A minor) chord, and when soloing (not only in the main solo, but also in numerous interjections during the singing breaks), he naturally moves in the area of the harmonic minor scale at the appropriate points. Yeah, and when he improvises, those hot blue notes just keep slipping in – and that's exactly how he ends up in Gypsy minor from Hungary.
Well, that's somewhat speculative; with these blue notes, he may simply be referring to the blues tradition. But the idea remains, and I find it exciting, that with this Knopfler affinity for the augmented fourth, in some mysterious way, my father's Hungarian background could have played a role after all…
Okay. So far, we've only talked about Mark's father. That's just how it is! But what about his mother? She most likely passed on no less to him. In my case, for example, my musicality comes much more from my dear mother (Marlise Köchli-Rapp); she sang with passion and feeling during my childhood, and she had this melodic ability to intuitively and easily find a second voice to the original melody for each song. That is a testament to a very good musical ear (not an absolute ear, but a relative one) – and that is precisely what I can benefit from today. Merci, Mama!
But somehow it still seems to be more common in our society to talk about fathers than mothers. When researching Mark Knopfler's parents, I also noticed that in the media and among fans, a little more is said about Erwin Knopfler than about Louisa Mary Laidler-Knopfler (1926-2018), Mark's mother. A photo of her from Mark's childhood is circulating on the internet – a woman with a heartfelt presence. Erwin Knopfler married the young Englishwoman in Newcastle in 1944, where their first child was born in 1947 (Mark's older sister Ruth, who died in 2020 at the age of 73). The family later moved to the Glasgow area, where Mark was born in 1949 and David in 1952; we'll talk about that in a moment.
A little information can be found about their mother, Louisa Mary. She completed a bachelor's degree at the renowned University of Durham and became a teacher. On a website about the history of chess in Scotland, you can also read that Erwin Knopfler's wife was an amateur actress for a while. So she was a very intelligent, cultured woman. And she was also musical; Louisa Mary played the piano and she sang. So there was undoubtedly an inspiring, musical spirit at Knopfler's home – a stroke of luck for Mark and his brother David. It may be a cliché to some extent, but I am convinced that the spirit that prevails in a family at a young age plays a decisive role in fostering certain abilities in a child. Without any drilling, just through good vibes. In music, which is itself the embodiment and creation of vibrations (sound waves), vibes can have a particularly rapid and lasting effect. Possibly even before birth, during pregnancy.
Well, the timeline on Knopfler's website stated that within the family, the first real musical inspiration was a certain Uncle Kingsley, whom Mark heard playing boogie-woogie piano and blues harp when he was about 11 years old. That's certainly true; it was the first conscious inspiration. But unconsciously, something crucial most likely happened before that. In a few interviews, Mark later recounted that when he was a small child, certain BBC music programmes regularly played at Knopfler's house (they didn't have a record player), including the legendary children's programme ‘Listen with Mother’, which included a lot of music. More importantly, his mother often sang along when musical pieces were played on the radio.
The singing mother. It warms the cockles of my heart. Mark's extremely fine sense of melody later became legendary. If I can ascribe even a small amount of talent to myself, then it is also in the area of intuitive handling of melodies. For me, there is no question about it: we owe this, among other things, to our mothers! The singing mothers. Nothing can be more touching than a voice.
Well, as I said, landscapes, vibrant cities etc. can also have an effect and influence on people's souls. Of course, such influences are not tangible, not measurable, but nevertheless, the question ‘what has this place made of me?’ is also justified. Especially at a young age, when we are most receptive.
The Knopfler family lived in the Glasgow area for the first seven years of Mark's life. Glasgow, the famous harbour city! The largest city in Scotland, basically a city of millions if we include the suburbs. Was there perhaps some kind of pulse in Glasgow that affected Mark Knopfler's life?
The question is superfluous. Glasgow has always been a city of music – and what a city! Is this sophisticated marketing rhetoric from a tourist office? I think there is more to it than that; it is essentially true. Glasgow is a vibrant city with a highly attractive music scene; ‘Glasgow's musical heart pumps rhythm into the city's every living vein,’ writes some advertising writer. And indeed, there are so many international acts performing on the big stages there, while newcomers showcase themselves in the pubs and clubs. From classical to rock, from punk to pipes, from country to Celtic – around 130 concerts on over 100 stages take place every week in Scotland's largest city, and have been doing so for decades. It's no wonder that Glasgow has been proudly bearing the title ‘UNESCO City of Music’ since 2008.
And it's more than just quantity. ‘People make Glasgow’; the people are what makes Glasgow what it is. Another slogan, but no question about it – it reflects the multiculturalism, cultural richness and special charm of this place. The Glaswegians (‘Weegies’, inhabitants of Glasgow) are considered to be the kindest people in Scotland. Glasgow is regularly voted one of the friendliest cities in the world. There is a lot of truth in this. And today hardly anyone doubts that this friendliness was also able to take root in the soul of Mark Knopfler for seven years. He shines with this friendliness; everyone who has met him seems to confirm it.
Okay, maybe it's all a coincidence; Mark might have turned out the same wherever he grew up. However, when I look at the list of music stars born in Glasgow, it's pretty impressive – and it inspires me to say that the spirit of Glasgow has what it takes to bear good fruit.
Here we go, a few names to choose from, sorted by year of birth:
1931
Lonnie Donegan, the skiffle legend
1945
Al Stewart, one of my favourite voices
1946
Donovan, the British counterpart to Bob Dylan
1948
Dick Gaughan, the excellent folk singer and guitarist
1949
Mark Knopfler
1950
John Paul Young, the man behind the worldwide hit ‘Love Is in the Air’
1952
David Knopfler, Mark's brother
1953
Malcolm Young, the AC/DC rhythm guitarist
1955
Angus Young, the AC/DC lead guitarist
1956
Maggie Reilly, the wonderful voice in Mike Oldfield's ‘Moonlight Shadow’
1959
Craig Armstrong, composer and arranger for U2, Björk, Tina Turner, Madonna
1959
Jim Kerr, co-founder of Simple Minds
1959
Eddi Reader, singer with Eurythmics, The Waterboys, Fairground Attraction
1959
Charlie Burchill, another co-founder of Simple Minds
1961
Jimmy Somerville, the legendary falsetto singer behind Bronski Beat, The Communards
1964
Justin Currie, known from the band Del Amitri
1987
Amy MacDonald, the singer-songwriter with her world hit ‘This Is the Life’
A whole bunch of good fruit, isn't it? It's obvious that Scotland left its mark on Mark Knopfler's music – in some of his songs (and in certain film soundtracks) he even gives the impression of being an ambassador for Celtic music. A real stroke of luck for the Celtic tradition. I would say that Mark Knopfler gives back to this culture what he received from it: this very special feeling for fragile melodies that go deep to the heart. In Celtic music, these melodies have been at home for centuries, millennia.
Now, let's see what's next in Mark Knopfler's timeline; two events a year apart:
1955 At six, he hears Lonnie Donegan, and the music bug bites him hard.
1956 Mark and family move to his mother's home town, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
The two events overlap to a certain extent. In 1955, Mark Knopfler heard the great skiffle star Lonnie Donegan (1931-2002) for the first time, while still in Glasgow. And a year later, when Mark turned seven and had to start school, the family moved from Glasgow to Mark's mother Louisa Mary's home town of Blyth. Blyth is a small town in the English county of Northumberland, on the coast of northeast England, just south of the River Blyth, about 13 miles northeast of Newcastle upon Tyne. The move was not just around the corner; it's about 124 miles and about three hours by car from Glasgow to Blyth. There was also quite a change in mentality; no longer a big city, climatically similar to Glasgow in that it is cold and uncomfortable, but romantically small and dreamy, Newcastle had the typical Geordieland spirit. The people who live there are called ‘Geordies’, and Geordie is also what their crazy accent is called – anyone of us non-British people who thinks they understand English well can be pretty much surprised there. ‘The most sexiest accent in the UK,’ claims the newspaper The Telegraph; this accent sounds very idiosyncratic. Strictly speaking, only people born in Newcastle can call themselves true Geordies, but Mark Knopfler later referred to himself as one of them on several occasions – and Geordies (Geordie Boys) made it into several of his songs (‘Why Aye Man’, ‘Sailing to Philadelphia’ or ‘Fare Thee Well Northumberland’).
The two events in the timeline (1955 and 1956) overlap; I am suggesting that Mark took his newly discovered hero from Glasgow (Lonnie Donegan) with him to Northumberland in the treasure trove of his heart. Donegan's influence was indeed lasting and long-term. Mark Knopfler created a touching memorial to him in the song ‘Donegan's Gone’ (2004 on the album ‘Shangrila’), and whenever he talked about music with music-loving journalists, the name Donegan came up.
Hanspeter ‘Düsi’ Kuenzler, a Swiss journalist living in London, is one of these experts. When the two discussed those days and the influence of folk music during an interview in 2005, the name Lonnie Donegan was quickly mentioned, along with Bob Dylan (whom Knopfler discovered at the age of 15 in 1964). Donegan reached Knopfler first; before Hank Marvin, before Bob Dylan, before B.B. King, before Chet Atkins, before J.J. Cale and all the other inspirations. This might be the right moment to listen to Knopfler talking and raving about Donegan in this exclusive interview.
Mark Knopfler: ‘If you start out at the age of seven with skiffle music, as I did, you get a really democratic view, a British view. Lonnie Donegan was Scottish (he was born in Glasgow), but he was still a “cockney” (a nickname for the citizens of London; Donegan lived and worked in the London area for most of his life). You get an English take on American music that is black and white and all-encompassing. Skiffle was a great introduction for many musicians here in this country. For example, for people like Joe Brown (Brown was one of the first English rock'n'roll stars and one of the first session musicians to accompany US stars such as Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran or Johnny Cash in Europe).’
Knopfler continues: ‘When I was little, I didn't know about Leadbelly or Josh White, Big Bill Broonzy or Ewan MacColl. I didn't know Pete Seeger, none of those guys. I only knew Lonnie Donegan, who sang ‘The Battle of New Orleans’ – and I knew I liked it! I didn't care if it was black or white or happy or sad, we just liked it.’
Kuenzler a little later in the interview: ‘To come back to “Lonnie Donegan's Gone” and all that skiffle music, Martin Carthy (a British folk musician who, among other things, inspired Simon and Garfunkel to produce the worldwide hit “Scarborough Fair”) once described it to me as the first punk thing, because anyone could do it and anyone had access to it.’
Knopfler: ‘Exactly, right! And the whole thing was an accident anyway. Because Chris Barber (1930-2021, legendary British trombonist, double bassist and bandleader) had a jazz band that he formed the year I was born, and he didn't have enough material for the first album. They were all young musicians in the band, Lonnie Donegan was the banjo player, and Lonnie suggested doing some skiffle. A lot of people didn't know what the term meant. Even today, there are different theories about skiffle. I understand it to be a type of music that was played at the so-called skiffle parties in the United States, where they charged an entrance fee to cover the rent. Like in those ‘shebeens’ (term for illegally operated pubs in Ireland and Scotland where alcohol was sold without a licence).’
Knopfler continues: ‘Lonnie had access to some of these Library of Congress recordings (the US national library where the legendary early blues and folk field recordings by Alan and John Lomax are archived). All the stuff on Barber's first record was done very quickly. That's actually Chris Barber playing bass on ‘Rock Island Line’ (an old railway song that became a worldwide hit in Lonnie Donegan's 1956 version). They started to include a skiffle section in their concert programme. A lot of the jazzers were quite snobbish about skiffle. But Chris never was. I remember a few years ago when we did a hillbilly thing at Ronnie Scott's (famous jazz club in London), it was wonderful to have Chris on trombone; we formed a small group with a couple of saxophones and Chris, and we did things like ‘Feel Like Going Home’, it was just great. Chris moves very smoothly between hillbilly music, blues and traditional jazz.’
By the way, there is a clip of this concert at Ronnie Scott's on Youtube; with Lonnie Donegan (but unfortunately no scene with Chris Barber), you can find it at Mark Knopfler and Lonnie Donegan perform at Ronnie Scotts 1998.
Lonnie Donegan and Chris Barber
I could listen for hours when Knopfler talks about skiffle, about Lonnie Donegan and about Chris Barber. I saw Barber live on 11 April 2013 in Zurich, at the International Dixie & Blues Festival in Switzerland. A good friend of mine, Albi Matter, organised this festival; I produced the programme booklet, wrote the programme text about Barber – and of course I wanted to see the British jazz legend on stage too. He was stunning, at the age of 83. And Albi Matter still talks about how Barber, after the concert, modestly trotted off to the restaurant kitchen to count the bills of his concert fee there, very concentrated. A gentleman and businessman of the old school.
Lonnie Donegan alone would fill a thousand pages in a book; he was about as important for the history of pop and rock music (especially in Europe) as the Beatles, Elvis or the old bluesmen. We have to be aware that without Lonnie Donegan there would be no Beatles, no Rolling Stones, no Led Zeppelin, no Queen or no Bee Gees. And no Dire Straits either! Lonnie Donegan was the first big Rock'n'Roll star in England; he basically triggered this whole wonderful wave on our continent – with songs like ‘Rock Island Line’ and ‘The Battle of New Orleans’, which Knopfler mentioned.
Particularly with ‘Rock Island Line’, an old folk song. Music researchers Alan and John Lomax discovered this song in 1934 during their visits to state prisons in the southern US states. Blues legend Huddie William Ledbetter (known as ‘Leadbelly’, 1888-1949) recorded it for the first time on 22 June 1937 in Washington D.C., for the very same Library of Congress.
Yeah, and 20 years later, ‘thousands of kids in England started playing guitar just because they heard this version by Lonnie Donegan,’ as Knopfler later explained. Donegan made the song a worldwide hit; he first played it (in a much faster version than Leadbelly's) in 1953 during a concert at London's Royal Festival Hall. And in July 1954, it appeared on Chris Barber's debut LP ‘New Orleans Joy’ (along with ‘John Henry’, a second skiffle song). In November 1955, Decca Records released both songs (‘Rock Island Line’ on the A-side) as Lonnie Donegan's first single – it topped the charts in England and the USA. Johnny Cash recorded the title in 1957 for his LP ‘Johnny Cash With His Hot And Blue Guitar’). But the most important thing is that Donegan's hit triggered the skiffle wave among British teenagers when the song was broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in January 1956.
These are not just anecdotes from music history – it is a key passage! Just one small detail proves this fact: ‘Rock Island Line’ was from now on also part of the standard repertoire of an English amateur band called Quarrymen; a young formation, founded in 1956 by a certain John Lennon, with his two school friends Paul McCartney and George Harrison. Any bells ringing? The Beatles' predecessor band! No more and no less…
There is no doubt about it: without Lonnie Donegan, there would have been no Beatles – and none of the things that happened later. That's what I mean when I say that no one in the world reinvents music; everything is interwoven, linked and connected to the past. Donegan was a key point (although he too drew from the past). So was Chris Barber, who gave Donegan the chance to set the avalanche in motion in the first place.
And because this avalanche also swept away seven-yearold Mark Knopfler, I now have the wonderful opportunity to write this book here…
Ah yes, I almost forgot: music is for the ears. Listen to Lonnie Donegan's version of the song, maybe also to that of Leadbelly; easy to find on the internet. There is also an old film recording of a live performance from 1961, which can be found on Youtube under Lonnie Donegan - Rock Island Line (Live) 15/6/1961; it's impressive to see how Lonnie starts off gently and then goes completely crazy towards the end.
One more thing, a little anecdote this time: Donegan received 50 pounds for the recording session with Barber, but no royalties for ‘Rock Island Line’. Not even Barber. The record company was the only one to make real money from the global hit. The same old story…
Where were we in Mark Knopfler's biography? Oh yes, in 1956, when Mark was seven years old, the Knopfler family moved from Scotland's largest city, Glasgow, to the dreamy town of Blyth in the Newcastle upon Tyne area. Skiffle king Donegan had already taken root in Mark's musical heart; in Newcastle, the next powerful inspiration soon followed. And Newcastle would later be very proud of Mark; quite a bit later, of course – the seven-year-old boy couldn't have known that the renowned football club Newcastle United FC would choose the film soundtrack ‘Local Hero’ (the title song ‘Going Home’) as its official anthem.
Mark had attended Bearsden Primary School in Scotland for two years; in Newcastle, Mark and his brother David now attended Gosforth Grammar School. Mark and David were probably not the easiest of students, especially not for their music teacher; through Donegan they had discovered the wild skiffle sound for themselves, and through their uncle Kingsley, the boogie-woogie piano. By the end of the 1950s, both Mark and David were more or less hopelessly infected with rock'n'roll fever. In her much-acclaimed biography of Dire Straits, published in 1991, the London-based German author and music historian Petra Zeitz wrote that the two brothers had hammered on the school piano ‘with such force’ that the music teacher, an older lover of classical music, ‘had hair standing on end’. A cinematic scene, and somehow also a cliché. It was probably simply the norm back then: a scene that played out a thousand times a day in the Western world because a new generation was turning the music world upside down. And in the case of the two Knopfler boys, they also turned the then-common way of learning a musical instrument upside down. Both refused to play from sheet music because they are simply auditory (and not visual) learners – as are a surprising number of people.
Just a decade later, when I started playing the guitar in Switzerland in 1970 at the age of eight, I encountered the same quirk (I didn't want to know about sheet music, my hearing was much faster than my mind) with my guitar teacher, an older lady, who was astonishingly understanding. A pure stroke of luck; for me, it was certainly worth its weight in gold, and I will never forget my teacher Ms Murer. Today, this is usually taken for granted anyway; good music teachers do everything they can to support children individually and to meet them where their specific abilities lie. This change in mentality occurred naturally, so to speak, because a considerable proportion of today's music teachers are also auditory learners and learned this way themselves.
Now, in Mark and David Knopfler's time, it was a lot more difficult – but the two of them were obviously cool and stubborn enough to succeed. Fortunately!
But, as I said, the most important thing is inspiration, those big key experiences – they can be crucial for a musician's life. For Mark, it happened in the summer of 1960, when he was eleven years old. And it happened, so to speak, on his doorstep; in Newcastle, where a 19-year-old guitarist living there was about to conquer the world with his own sound and a very particular instrumental piece.
Hank Marvin
The legendary Hank Marvin now embarrasses me in turn, for two reasons. On the one hand, because the man was (and fortunately still is) so important in the puzzle of music history that he would easily fill a separate book. But since we are focusing on Mark Knopfler here, I can unfortunately only touch on Hank's story briefly.
On the other hand, because Hank Marvin's story also touched my own, among other things. That famous guitar piece ‘Apache’ happened to be the first single I owned, and the first guitar melody I learned. Not in 1960, though, but eleven years later, when, after my first year of guitar lessons, I took on this challenge for my school-leaving concert in 1971. Somehow, as a nine-year-old boy, I managed to learn the Shadows hit by heart, without, of course, having the slightest idea in terms of music theory of what exactly I was playing. ‘Apache’ was my very first sense of achievement, at a time when I didn't know anything about all the other heroes (the rock'n'rollers and bluesers, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Dylan, Clapton, Knopfler, J.J. Cale, Ry Cooder and many others). Of course, my youth is not the subject here; my personal story with Hank Marvin is not very spectacular anyway, because Marvin's magic touched thousands of musicians of my generation at the time.
It is nevertheless a happy coincidence that Hank Marvin was able to decisively influence countless famous and less famous guitarists back then. It's also fortunate because something like that might not even be possible today; the genesis of Hank Marvin's ‘Apache,’ the entire cultural background, is an expression of a superficial, romanticised notion of Indian life. A cliché, a myth. Something like that would undoubtedly be targeted by the ‘woke’ police; a song like ‘Apache’ would no longer be able to become a worldwide hit.
The English songwriter and composer Jerry Lordan (1934 – 1995) wrote the melody in the late 1950s, and Lordan was inspired to write this piece of music after American western ‘Apache’; he wanted to compose ‘something noble and dramatic’ to express the courage and ferocity of the Apache Indian warrior Massai (played by Burt Lancaster). We know what happens to such clichés in the current zeitgeist; they are blacklisted – books from that time are rewritten, films are removed from television programmes. The term ‘Indian’ is rightly a no-go from today's perspective; it should be ‘member of indigenous tribes’, ‘Native Americans’. Censorship of this kind is done with good intentions; it is necessary to come to terms with history and to develop language further. However, when ideological zeal causes art and culture to fall by the wayside, it is questionable. Every work of art in the world ultimately embodies only one cliché, one naturally limited perspective. No artist in the world can depict something completely objectively and ‘wholly’; every work of art remains a subjective, limited view. And above all, a view that will surely change and develop later. If we have to expect that contemporary art will be censored, rewritten or banned by the next generation, it will stifle any passion for creating works in the context of our current perceptions and perspectives.
Well, I'm just saying: we are glad and grateful that Hank Marvin was able to work freely and entirely as he pleased back then, that with his romanticised interpretation of Apache he sent a whole horde of future guitar heroes on their way, including Mark Knopfler.
At a certain point in time, Hank Marvin was a key figure in music history, especially in England – and at the same time, his biography relentlessly reveals where all this stuff really comes from. Marvin was born Brian Robson Rankin in 1941 at 138 Stanhope Street in Newcastle upon Tyne, England; in the same area where Mark Knopfler later grew up. Hank only took up the guitar at the age of 16 (before that he played the banjo and piano) when he heard Buddy Holly in 1957, the rising star in the rock'n'roll sky. Marvin immediately got hold of a guitar, never let go of it and tried to absorb as much as possible from the playing of the guitar heroes of the time; in addition to Buddy Holly, especially from Scotty Moore with Elvis, Cliff Gallup with Gene Vincent, Chuck Berry, James Burton with Ricky Nelson – Hank was crazy about this kind of guitar sound. There was also a single called ‘The Fool’ by Sanford Clark (released in June 1956) with a guitar riff that Hank couldn't get out of his head (he used an almost identical riff later on to write the song ‘She's Gone’ with Jet Harris).
This riff was actually a blues lick, a guitar phrase that has been played in a similar way on every street corner since the 1930s (to put it somewhat exaggeratedly). That's what I meant earlier when I said ‘where all this stuff really comes from’; ‘the blues had a baby and they named it rock'n'roll,’ as Muddy Waters said so beautifully. The blues, of course, was also ‘just’ a baby, and wouldn't exist without gospel music (as I show in detail in my book ‘Holy Blues’). History is a chain; I am extremely grateful for this chain of events, which ultimately also produced guitarists like Hank Marvin and Mark Knopfler.
Hank Marvin moved to London a year later (1958) to seek his fortune. He and his school friend Bruce Welch met Johnny Foster, Cliff Richard's manager, and both soon played in Richard's band The Drifters. The rest is history; in 1959 Cliff Richard bought a fiesta red Fender Stratocaster in the USA for his new guitarist Hank Marvin – this red Strat is now considered to be the first Fender Stratocaster to arrive on European soil. Cliff Richard's band soon changed its name to The Shadows; these Shadows went on to play with both Cliff Richard and solo, and it was particularly in 1960 that things really took off for the solo version of the band with the instrumental world hit ‘Apache’, which was followed by four more number one hits (including ‘Wonderful Land’, which topped the UK charts for eight weeks, longer than any Beatles hit).
Hank Marvin is considered one of the first British guitar heroes. He became legendary for his soulful, melodic playing and his use of the volume pedal. His sound and his phrasing, reminiscent of human singing, are unique and influenced not only Mark Knopfler but also countless British rock greats such as George Harrison, Eric Clapton, David Gilmour, Brian May, Peter Frampton, Steve Howe, Roy Wood, Tony Iommi, Pete Townshend, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. His influence, of course, extended beyond Europe; his fans from the very beginning also include, for example, the Australian guitar virtuoso Tommy Emmanuel and the US-Canadian folk rock legend Neil Young (who dedicated the song ‘From Hank to Hendrix’ to him on the album ‘Harvest Moon’).
Hank Marvin is still in top form today, still bursting with enthusiasm for music-making at the age of 80, and recently gave a convincing performance on Mark Knopfler's charity version of ‘Going Home’ (‘Local Hero’), together with 60 legendary musicians (we'll talk about that in volume 2). Knopfler owes a great deal to Hank Marvin's initial spark in 1960, and he invited his former teacher on stage as a guest several times during the Dire Straits era.
Incidentally, how did it actually work back then with that famous ‘Apache’ hit; as is well known, Hank Marvin did not write the piece himself, nor was he the first to record it. Why did it hit the mark with him?
Originally the song was recorded in early 1960, so before the Shadows, by a certain Bert Weedon, a British guitarist we will talk about in a moment. Due to promotion and label problems this recording remained unreleased for months. The composer of the piece (Jerry Lordan) didn't particularly like Weedon's version anyway; so he played the song on his ukulele for the Shadows during their Cliff Richard tour. The Shadows were hooked on Lordan's distinctive melody, recorded the number immediately in June 1960 and released it a month later. Weedon's version was released around the same time, and although it received some good reviews and made it to number 24 in the British charts, Hank Marvin's version won hands down in terms of commercial success – it became a real worldwide hit.
