Rock
A fingerstyle guitarist, a plain-spoken songwriter, and a band that made understatement feel enormous.
The biography
Dire Straits formed in Deptford, in southeast London, in 1977. Mark Knopfler played guitar and sang, his younger brother David played rhythm guitar, John Illsley played bass, and Pick Withers played drums. The band’s name was a joke about their empty pockets, suggested by a musician friend, and it stuck because it was honest: four players with serious talent and no money at all.
Knopfler’s guitar style set the band apart from the start. He played fingerstyle, without a pick, coaxing a singing, almost vocal tone out of his Stratocaster. A five-song demo cut in a small London studio in 1977 found its way to Charlie Gillett, who began playing “Sultans of Swing” on his BBC Radio London show. The response was strong enough to win the band a recording contract, and their self-titled debut album arrived in 1978.
“Sultans of Swing” became a slow-burning hit, reaching the top 10 in Britain and the top 5 in America, and Dire Straits were suddenly an international concern. Communiqué (1979), recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, kept the momentum going, though it lived somewhat in the debut’s shadow.
Making Movies (1980) was the turning point. David Knopfler left the band during the sessions, and the remaining trio recorded in New York with producer Jimmy Iovine and E Street Band pianist Roy Bittan. The album gave them “Romeo and Juliet” and the widescreen “Tunnel of Love,” and it showed Knopfler thinking in bigger, more cinematic terms. Love Over Gold (1982) went further: long, ambitious songs like “Telegraph Road” and “Private Investigations,” the latter a number 2 hit in Britain.
Then came Brothers in Arms (1985), recorded in Montserrat with Neil Dorfsman co-producing. It became one of the best-selling albums of all time and a landmark of the young CD era, spinning off “Money for Nothing” — a number 1 single in America — plus “Walk of Life,” “So Far Away,” and the solemn title track. The band played Live Aid at Wembley in July 1985, with Sting joining them on stage, and then toured the world for the better part of a year.
After a long break, the band returned with On Every Street (1991), but the old fire burned lower, and Knopfler wound Dire Straits down in 1995 to begin a solo career — albums like Golden Heart (1996) and a celebrated run of film scores including Local Hero and The Princess Bride. Dire Straits were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018, honored as a band that proved quiet playing could fill the biggest rooms on earth.