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Sultans Of Swing: The Untold Story Of Dire Straits

Why the biggest-selling British rock band of the 80s deserve to be rescued from the dustbin of history.

At 10.10pm on October 9, 1992, Mark Knopfler bid goodnight to 40,000 people and walked off stage in Zaragoza, Spain. It was the last time he did so as the singer, guitarist and undisputed leader of Dire Straits. It brought to an end a 15-year journey during which time the band had risen from the pubs and sweaty clubs of London to the very biggest stages in the world.

The simple facts are these: Knopfler formed Dire Straits in London in 1977 with his younger brother David on rhythm guitar, John Illsley on bass and Pick Withers on drums. Emerging from the city’s fertile pub-rock scene at the dawn of the punk era, they were an overnight sensation. The white-hot success of their first single, Sultans Of Swing , and self-titled debut album was founded on the elder Knopfler’s fluid, finger-picked guitar style, which sounded as lovely as a bubbling stream. Theirs was no fleeting moment, either, with three more hit records following before they reached their apogee on their fifth studio album, Brothers In Arms .

That record was unstoppable from the moment of its release in May 1985. It made Dire Straits superstars, but it also warped the popular perception of both Knopfler and his band. Dire Straits became a byword for a certain sort of safe, homogenised music, and Knopfler was turned into a caricature of the middle-aged rocker, with jacket sleeves rolled up and wearing a headband.

What was forgotten in the wake of its stellar success was just how striking and sometimes radical Dire Straits had seemed from their inception. The bare-boned economy of Knopfler’s songs and his dizzying guitar fills were a breath of clean air amid the lumbering rock dinosaurs and one-dimensional punk thrashers of the late 70s. He was peerless as craftsman and virtuoso, able to plug into rock’s classic lineage and bend it to sometimes wild forms. He wrote terrific songs, too: from Sultans Of Swing to Romeo And Juliet , Tunnel Of Love to Private Investigations . These were taut mini-dramas of dark depths and dazzling melodic and lyrical flourishes. In quick time Knopfler was fêted by the rock aristocracy. Bob Dylan invited him to be his band leader and producer, and a parade of other icons also beat a path to Knopfler’s door, among them Phil Lynott, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison and Tina Turner.

It would be hard to conjure a less likely rock star than Knopfler. Balding and outwardly taciturn, he seemed born to the role of sideman. Yet his formidable talent was yoked to an iron will. He drove Dire Straits on, expanding their boundaries right up to the point Brothers In Arms became too all-consuming to contain. It wasn’t even as if he had contrived to make a blockbuster. In large part it was hushed and melancholy, a sigh rather than a roar. But it was damned by having its signature single explode out of context. At its core, Money For Nothing was an old-school boogie, but a dash of studio polish, Sting’s mannered backing vocal and a computer-generated promo video were enough to turn it, and Dire Straits themselves, into the very embodiment of 80s naff.

Small wonder that Knopfler once told Rolling Stone: “Success I adore. It means I can buy 1959 Gibson Les Pauls and Triumph motorcycles. But I detest fame. It interferes with what you do and has no redeeming features at all.”

Mark Knopfler was born into a middle-class household in Glasgow in 1949. His brother and future Dire Straits bandmate David followed three years later. Their father was an architect expelled from his native Hungary on account of his firebrand socialism. When the family moved to Newcastle in the 50s their English mother became a headmistress, and both boys attended a local grammar school in Gosforth.

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Music was a fact of life in the Knopfler house. The brothers latched on to Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and, later, The Shadows. Hearing the latter, and in particular their bespectacled lead guitarist Hank Marvin, opened up a future filled with possibilities for Mark Knopfler. He traced the arc of Marvin’s distinctive sound back to American wizards like Chet Atkins, Elvis’s guitar slingers Scotty Moore and James Burton, and blues greats such as Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and Howlin’ Wolf. At 15 he persuaded his father to buy him his first guitar, a £50 copy of Marvin’s red Stratocaster. Soon he’d taught himself the basics and was playing in school bands and on the city’s club circuit. Brother David followed suit, performing at working men’s clubs in a folk duo.

“On one hand our parents were horrified that we wanted to make a career of pop music,” David Knopfler says now. “On the other they had a liberal bias for letting us follow our own path. But they would have preferred us to be architects or lawyers, not ‘My son the unemployed strummer’.”

Mark was first to flee the nest, when he got a job as a cub reporter on the Yorkshire Evening Post in Leeds. One of his first tasks for the paper was to write Jimi Hendrix’s obituary in September 1970, handed to him on account of him being the only person in the office young enough to know who Hendrix was. Another was to interview a local blues guitarist, Steve Phillips. The two of them hit it off and began performing together as an acoustic duo called Duolian Stringpickers, and spent the next few years playing gigs in the north-east.

“Mark was already a very capable guitarist at eighteen or nineteen, way above the norm,” notes Steve Phillips. “But he hadn’t developed his own style. He was far more withdrawn then as well. He didn’t have the confidence he acquired later as a musician, and didn’t see himself as a singer at all. His idea was that he would be the guitar player behind somebody else.”

During that time Knopfler left the paper to take a degree in English at Leeds University, and married his school sweetheart, Kathy White. As soon as he graduated in 1973 Knopfler headed for London. He answered a classified ad in the Melody Maker to join jobbing pub-rock band Brewers Droop. The group had a record deal with RCA but were in the process of falling apart. Two months later Knopfler was out of a job, destitute and newly divorced, the move to London having brought about the end of his marriage. He returned to Newcastle. Later he took a post as an English lecturer at Loughton College in Essex, and put together his own pub-rock band, the Café Racers.

The teaching job gave Knopfler a lifeline and disposable income. He bought a motorbike and his dad’s car, allowing him to transport his growing collection of guitars from one pub gig to the next. In 1976 he struck out on his own on a trip to America, travelling the country on a Greyhound bus and starting work on what would become Dire Straits’ first set of songs.

At the same time, David Knopfler moved to London to work as a social worker in Deptford, a down-at-heel neighbourhood south of the Thames. He moved into a council flat shared with 26-year-old John Illsley, a bass player who’d grown up in rural Leicestershire and was then studying sociology at nearby Goldsmith’s College. The senior Knopfler became a regular visitor to the flat, bringing along his guitar for jamming sessions that took off after last orders at the pub.

“We got along well from the start,” Illsley recounts now. “I did a couple of gigs with Mark’s band because the bass player’s girlfriend was having a baby. After that we were sat in the pub one night and decided to start our own band. There was always a strong consensus between Mark and me about how things should be. We rarely disagreed about anything.”

Knopfler introduced his brother and Illsley to Pick Withers, a propulsive drummer he’d first met while doing an aborted session with Rod Clements of Lindisfarne. The four of them began rehearsing together in the poky flat, padding the walls and trusting to the benevolence of the neighbours.

“We didn’t talk about it, we just got on with it and it evolved,” says David Knopfler (below, with Mark). “But then I think both Mark and I had a different vision of what we were up to. I was building a democracy, and Mark was making an autocracy.”

It was Pick Withers, the only member of the fledgling band without a day job, who suggested the name Dire Straits. The newly christened four-piece played their first gig together in the summer of 1977. It was at a makeshift festival that took place on a patch of grass out the back of the Deptford council block, and they ran a power cable from their flat to the small stage. Illsley recalls sharing the bill that afternoon with a bunch of snarling punk bands, though in fact it was the more approachable Squeeze who headlined.

Using £500 Illsley had inherited from his grandmother, the band cut a demo at the tiny Pathway Studios in north London. Among the five Mark Knopfler originals on the tape were Sultans Of Swing , a loose-limbed account of watching a hapless jazz combo flailing in a London pub, and a languorous shuffle titled Down To The Waterline . Lyrically evocative, beautifully played and sung by Knopfler in a laconic drawl, the tracks sounded fresh and different. DJ and rock historian Charlie Gillett got hold of the tape and began airing it, alerting Phonogram Records A&R man John Stainze, a rockabilly buff who snapped the band up to the major label.

Stainze reached out to a booking agent contact of his, Ed Bicknell, inviting him along to see his new band playing at the Dingwalls club in Camden. Bicknell had taken his first steps into the music business at Hull University in the 60s, where as social secretary he booked gigs by the likes of Led Zeppelin, The Who and Pink Floyd before joining the prestigious NEMS agency that handled such heavyweight clients as Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Elton John. Fortuitously, Bicknell too had had his road-to-Damascus moment with music through The Shadows.

“I listened to two songs that night and turned to John and said: ‘He’s got a red Stratocaster like Hank Marvin’s. Who’s managing this group?’” Bicknell recalls. “If Mark would have had a blue Gibson I’d have walked out, but he encapsulated everything that was my dream. I remember I was wearing a long suede coat with a nylon fur collar that night. When I went into the dressing room to meet the band, the hem of the coat caught the red Stratocaster and knocked it off its stand to the floor. That went down like a lead balloon.”

Bicknell cemented his credentials by booking the band onto a 23-date UK tour with Talking Heads in December 1977. By the end of it he was their manager and within two months Dire Straits were recording their first album at Island Records’ Basing Street studios with producer Muff Winwood, elder brother of Stevie and former bassist with the Spencer Davies Group.

“Or Spluff Windbag, as we called him,” says Bicknell, laughing. “He pretty much recorded a live record but without the audience. It cost £12,500, including the sleeve, and it sold eight million within nine months of coming out. We were reeling: ‘Fuck me. What’s happening?’”

The Dire Straits album was released in October 1978. At a point when such second-generation punk and new-wave acts as The Jam, Boomtown Rats and Generation X were making an impression, it stood apart. Knopfler’s songs were characterised by the intricacies of his guitar playing, the rolling gait of the band’s rhythms and by their open spaces, as uncluttered as prairie lands. It was a rich musical terrain that drew comparisons with Dylan, JJ Cale and Ry Cooder. But in spirit it was closest to another great record released that year, Bruce Springsteen’s symphony to the working man, Darkness On The Edge Of Town . Like that record it had the same connection to time and place. In Dire Straits’ case this was to the back streets of Newcastle and the bright lights of London, with Knopfler narrating his journey from one city to the other.

It was a success from the off, going Top 10 all across Europe. When it was released in America six months later it vaulted to No.2 on the Billboard chart. The band drove themselves around the States on their first tour of the country at the start of 1979. Dylan came to see their show in LA, popping backstage afterwards to ask Knopfler to play on his next album, Slow Train Coming . Knopfler, who had seen Dylan at Newcastle City Hall on his first electric tour in 1966, would later recall hiring an open-top convertible and driving down Santa Monica Boulevard to the session, getting sunburnt on route and thinking to himself: “This is it.”

“Mark was our standard bearer and ticket to being exceptional rather than merely good,” acknowledges David Knopfler. “He was actually rather humble at that point – hard for me to imagine now. John Illsley and I pretty much dragged him to the altar all the way.”

Before they even got to America, the band’s UK record company hurried them for a follow-up record, winging them out to the Bahamas to make Communique with producer and impresario Jerry Wexler, the man who had signed Led Zeppelin and recorded Ray Charles. Wexler smoothed the rougher edges of their sound. The album was rushed out less than a year after their debut, to a cooler response and slower sales. In retrospect it sounds like a logical step forward: Wexler’s sheen bringing Knopfler’s textured melodies into sharper focus, heard to best effect on Once Upon A Time In The West and the quick-stepping Lady Writer, each as coolly embracing as a Bahamian sunset.

As their whirlwind schedule intensified, the first strains began to show. Tensions within the band were brewing, intensified by the claustrophobia engendered by being constantly on the road or in the studio, and arising most damagingly between the two brothers.

“Everything put a strain on us,” says David Knopfler. “It was just through being exhausted: drinking too much every night, partying and wrecking your physical and mental health in the way that rock bands did then to excess.”

“Nobody involved is prepared for success like that,” adds Bicknell. “Everything changes, of course, but you stay the same. You’re probably still in your horrible little flat eating bacon sandwiches because none of the money has flowed through. Or if it has, you’re so terrified of it that you don’t spend anything, which is what happened with us. You think the tax man is going to take it away or that this is going to stop tomorrow.”

Bicknell suggests that the tension between the Knopflers ran deeper than Dire Straits. “David’s problem was he thought that the band should be a democracy, and it was more like a brutal dictatorship – as far as he was concerned. The issues between him and Mark, which for public consumption have been packaged up as musical issues, they weren’t. As John Illsley said to me at the time: ‘This has been going on since David was born.’ I’m stating the obvious, but David was in the group because he was Mark’s brother, not because he was the greatest rhythm guitarist that Mark could have found.”

John Illsley and I meet at a coffee shop in Notting Hill on a bright spring morning. The moment he walks through the door, Dire Straits’ 1980 hit Romeo And Juliet begins playing on the radio. Illsley smiles at the coincidence and suggests – entirely accurately – that the 35-year-old song sounds as if it had been made just yesterday.

At the time of its release it represented a crossing of the Rubicon for Mark Knopfler as a songwriter and for the band in general. Knopfler always was a prolific writer, but as he approached Dire Straits’ third album he had new horizons in mind. He envisioned the band’s sound being enhanced by keyboards, and of this freeing him to explore more complex terrain. Romeo And Juliet was the first signpost to his intentions: a near six-minute roller-coaster ride rumbling through the wreckage of a shattered love affair.

“I remember him coming into the office and playing it to me for the first time,” says Ed Bicknell. “I didn’t know what to say: I just sat and stared at the ground in complete disbelief. By then Mark had cottoned on that this was his group and he edged himself into pole position.”

The act of Knopfler conclusively seizing control would have been provocative enough, but it was exacerbated by other issues bubbling to the surface as the band gathered in New York to record their third album, Making Movies. According to Bicknell, three years of constant work had left them in a parlous state. It transpired that Romeo And Juliet was drawn from very personal experience.

“There were issues with various band members that related mostly to the girls in their lives and were calamitous,” says Bicknell. “We went into that record off the back of three out of four of them going through break-ups. Certain people also didn’t like certain people. It got very fractious. I thought the band was about to break up.”

To begin with, nothing was helped by them being in the studio with producer Jimmy Iovine. A brash New Yorker just off the back of making hit records with Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty, Iovine had a painstaking way of working; the first week of recording was spent attempting to get the perfect drum sound. In this hothouse atmosphere the Knopflers were soon at each other’s throats.

“Before we started recording, Jimmy took Mark to watch a Springsteen session and his jaw was on the floor,” says David Knopfler. “Everyone was calling Springsteen ‘Boss’ and he completely called the shots. But Bruce had spent thirty years learning to be boss and he’s very good at it. Mark had not long come from being a college lecturer and hadn’t been schooled in people skills.

By that point the Knopflers’ relationship was as bad as it could be. “By the time of Making Movies he was king,” recalls David. “But he was the bloke I’d shared a bedroom with. How could I be deferential to him?”

When the blow-up came it was swift and brutal. The brothers had an explosive argument and David Knopfler quit. He returned to the UK, where he would begin a solo career. Three years later his elder brother guested on his debut solo album, but the two of them were estranged.

“David’s going wasn’t nice but it was absolutely inevitable,” says Ed Bicknell, who says that same issue of control led to Pick Withers’s departure within two years. “Mark’s got a strong personality and he’s very determined, and quite ruthless. But you need to be ruthless if you’re going to climb the greasy pole, and democracy in groups never, ever works.”

With David Knopfler gone, the pace of recording picked up and Making Movies took shape. Iovine brought in Springsteen’s E Street Band pianist Roy Bittan, and his heart-stopping fills gave wings to another epic, Tunnel Of Love , on which Knopfler located the sweet spot between the E Street Band’s hulking engine and Dylan’s rolling thunder. Hearing the track come into being, says Bicknell, “it felt like a jet plane taking off”.

A glut of boldly ambitious records came out in 1980 – Springsteen’s The River , John Lennon’s Double Fantasy , Sandinista! by the Clash and Talking Heads’ Remain In Light to name but four. Making Movies stood at least shoulder to shoulder with each of them. Fired by the extra dimension Bittan brought into play, Knopfler subverted his guitar to the songs, and in doing so extracted from them greater heft and a new-found emotional resonance. Romeo And Juliet and Tunnel Of Love initially towered over the rest, but repeated listening revealed more jewels in Solid Rock , Espresso Love and the surging ballad Hand In Hand .

For the ensuing tour Knopfler brought in American guitarist Hal Lindes to fill his brother’s shoes and fellow Geordie Alan Clark on keyboards. Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan were among those turning out to pay their respects at one triumphal show at the Roxy on Los Angeles’ Sunset Strip.

As the 80s unwound Mark Knopfler was like a man released. He wrote a thoroughly fitting soundtrack for the bittersweet British film Local Hero , produced Dylan’s Infidels album and, in 1982, reconvened Dire Straits for the grandiose Love Over Gold . That album featured just five songs – all of them long and involved, and two of them stone-cold classics. Fifteen-minute opener Telegraph Road was pieced together during sound-checks on the Making Movies tour and unfolded like a literary novel, documenting America’s industrial revolution. Private Investigations was even more outlandish, a somnolent musical noir that Knopfler insisted be released unedited as a seven-minute single. Remarkably it reached No.2 in the UK.

Next up was the live double Alchemy, taped on the Love Over Gold tour and showcasing a band at the peak of its powers. Free from the confines of the studio, Dire Straits were able to stretch out and take flight, nowhere more so than on Sultans Of Swing and Telegraph Road . Both were longer and far more powerful than their studio counterparts.

Knopfler saw this as the end of an era for the band. “I’d like to try something else now,” he said at the time. “It could be acoustic guitar, or it could be all brass instruments, I really don’t know.”

Perhaps least of all he anticipated making one of the defining albums of the decade.

Towards the end of 1984 Knopfler assembled a new line-up of Dire Straits in London to rehearse their next record. He appeared more single-minded and attentive to detail than ever, rigorously putting the group through their paces for a month before whisking them off to Air Studios on the Caribbean island of Montserrat to cut Brothers In Arms.

Air Studios, later razed to the ground by a hurricane, was an idyllic location, and the tranquillity of island life seemed to relax Knopfler to his task. There was an ease to much of Brothers In Arms , as if the music had seeped from his fingertips unbidden. The mood of much of it was low-key and reflective, shifting from the late-night whispers of Why Worry and Your Latest Trick to the near-whispered title track. When it was roused, as on the crashing chords of The Man’s Too Strong , the effect was that much more magnified.

Yet one of Knopfler’s new songs immediately stood out from the rest. It began with a fuzzed guitar riff that Ed Bicknell suspects was inspired by ZZ Top, and proceeded to recount verbatim a rant at MTV that Knopfler had overheard a deliveryman making in an electrical goods store in New York. Sting added his distinctive vocals to the intro section of the track – singing the single sorrowful refrain: ‘I want my MTV.’

“Sting used to come to Montserrat to go windsurfing, and he came up for supper at the studio,” says John Illsley. “We played him Money For Nothing and he turned round and said: ‘You’ve done it this time, you bastards.’ Mark said if he thought it was so good why didn’t he go and add something to it. He did his bit there and then.”

Knopfler had another song, the gambolling boogie Walk Of Life , set aside as a B-side, until Ed Bicknell happened upon it while it was being mixed and persuaded him to include it on the album at the last minute. In the event it was an even bigger-selling single than Money For Nothing .

Upon its release, Brothers In Arms met with lukewarm reviews, but it arrived at precisely the right time. MTV was about to launch in the UK, and the music station leapt upon the animated promo for Money For Nothing, choosing it as the first video to be aired on the channel. The compact disc had also arrived, and Brothers In Arms’ exquisite production was tailor-made for the new format. The album sold more than a million copies on CD alone, taking Dire Straits to a new generation of consumers who saw music a status symbol. It took up a four-year residency in the UK chart and spent nine weeks at No.1 in the US, elevating Knopfler and his band to the top table of 80s megastardom alongside Springsteen, Prince, Michael Jackson and Madonna.

In its wake, Dire Straits set off on an 18-month world tour that took in 247 sold-out stadium and arena shows in 100 cities. By the end of it the endless attention and the sheer weight of numbers had lost all meaning for the band members, and for Mark Knopfler most of all.

“I would do a report for them every week which was then shoved under each of their hotel room doors,” says Ed Bicknell. “It would give world chart positions, and album and singles sales figures. I’m absolutely sure in my own mind that Mark would take his copy and put it straight in the bin.”

After Brothers In Arms Knopfler retreated from the spotlight for the best part of five years, but was eventually tempted back. In 1991 he gathered Dire Straits once more, for the On Every Street album. It sounded worn and tired, but still racked up 10 million sales. They embarked on another mammoth tour on the back of it, playing close to 300 shows in two years. It was a vast undertaking and also a ruinous one. Knopfler’s second marriage disintegrated, and he recoiled from the dehumanising nature of existing on such a grand scale. It was all over after that last gig in Zaragoza, but he formally laid the band to rest in 1996 and has barely spoken of them since.

“The last tour was utter misery,” says Ed Bicknell. “Whatever the zeitgeist was that we had been part of, it had passed.”

“Mark and I agreed that was enough,” recalls John Illsey. “Personal relationships were in trouble and it put a terrible strain on everybody emotionally and physically. We were changed by it. Neither of us wants to go back to those days. Mark described it to me just the other day as being too much ‘white light’ – too much in the spotlight, and he was never very comfortable with that.”

With the band laid to rest, John Illsley settled down to indulge his love of painting and is currently preparing an exhibition of his work in London. He also continues to record and tour with his own band. Ed Bicknell managed Mark Knopfler for several years after the split but has now retired.

Having run his race with Dire Straits, Knopfler has since contented himself in a quieter, more comfortable niche – composing soundtracks, collaborating with the likes of Chet Atkins and Emmylou Harris, and making a succession of roots-based solo albums, of which the latest, and possibly best, is this year’s Tracker . He was married for the third time, to actress Kitty Aldridge in 1997, and continues to indulge his lifelong passion for motorbikes and collecting classic cars. He and his brother are still not speaking.

“I spent a lot of time doing therapy and dealing with my issues and ghosts and demons,” says David Knopfler. “Maybe Mark has too. I don’t know what he does. Of course, it casts a huge shadow on both our lives and on our families. We’ve got cousins who don’t know each other.”

Ed Bicknell says that people ask him regularly when Dire Straits are going to get back together. His answer remains the same.

“I tell them the same thing: why would they? None of them needs the money. Peter Grant once said to me: ‘When you’ve had an experience like I had with Led Zeppelin and you had with Dire Straits, there is no point trying to reproduce it.’ And he was exactly right. That was the one.”

The Top 10 Best Dire Straits Songs

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Paul Rees been a professional writer and journalist for more than 20 years. He was Editor-in-Chief of the music magazines Q and Kerrang! for a total of 13 years and during that period interviewed everyone from Sir Paul McCartney, Madonna and Bruce Springsteen to Noel Gallagher, Adele and Take That. His work has also been published in the Sunday Times, the Telegraph, the Independent, the Evening Standard, the Sunday Express, Classic Rock, Outdoor Fitness, When Saturday Comes and a range of international periodicals. 

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Talking Heads’ Members Announce Remain in Light North American Tour

by Alli Patton November 2, 2022, 12:57 pm

Jerry Harrison and Adrian Belew are once again bringing Remain in Light to the stage.

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Performing the 1980 Talking Heads album in its entirety, Harrison, a mainstay in the art-punk, avant-funk ensemble, and Belew, a touring guitarist for the band, are hitting the road in 2023 for a 19-date tour. They’ll bring Talking Heads’ classics like “Crosseyed and Painless” and “Once in a Lifetime” to audiences across North America.

“ Remain in Light is a high point in my career,” Harrison said in a statement. “Adrian and I had often discussed the magic of the 1980 tour and the sheer joy it brought to audiences.”

In 2020, Harrison and Belew performed the album in full together with the now-disbanded group, Turkuaz. The pair teamed up again for a special Los Angeles performance this past September.

Belew described the performances as a “joyful show of Talking Heads songs you know and love performed by a hot, eleven-piece ensemble including Jerry and me … You can’t help but dance and go home with a happy smile on your face.”

Former members of Turkuaz will join the duo on tour as the outfit Cool Cool Cool.

Feb. 16 – Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre Feb. 17 – Boulder, CO @ Boulder Theater Feb. 18 – Beaver Creek, CO @ Vilar Performing Arts Center Feb. 21 – Oklahoma City, OK @ Tower Theatre Feb. 22 – St. Louis, MO @ Factory Feb. 24 – Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue Feb. 25 – Chicago, IL @ Vic Theatre Feb. 26 – Indianapolis, IN @ Egyptian Room Feb. 27 – Akron, OH @ Goodyear Theater Feb. 28 – Buffalo, NY @ Town Ballroom March 2 – Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall March 3 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Roxian Theatre March 4 – Baltimore, MD @ Rams Head Live March 5 – Sayreville, NJ @ Starland Ballroom March 7 – Philadelphia, PA @ Keswick Theatre March 8 – Albany, NY @ Empire Live March 9 – New York, NY @ Sony Hall March 10 – Boston, MA @ House of Blues March 11 – New Haven, CT @ College Street Music Hall

Photo: Michael Weintrob/Prospect PR

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On Beacon Hill 9 – Ed Bicknell, manager of Dire Straits

ED BICKNELL – Manager of Dire Straits December 1977 to August 2000

Ed Bicknell was born in 1948 and educated at Yorkshire’s Tadcaster Grammar School. From 1966-69 he attended Hull University graduating with a degree in Social Studies. At Hull University Ed became Chairman of the Entertainments Committee, a position he held for two years. He also became Chairman of the University Rag Committee in 1969, President of the University Jazz Club, 1968 and 1969, and Vice-President of his University Hall of Residence over the same period. It was in fulfilling these roles that he was provided with his baptism into the field of popular music. During his time at university Ed booked a number of bands that have since become household names: bands such as John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers , Jimi Hendrix, The Who, The Moody Blues and Led Zeppelin . “I had one rule,” says Ed, “I only booked the bands I liked. I put my first act on for £100 – it was Pink Floyd .” Among those who found themselves sleeping on the floor in Ed’s flat were Ralph McTell and the late, great Alexis Korner .

After graduating in 1969 Ed moved to London to pursue his career in the music business. Between 1970 and 1977 he established himself an agent representing and arranging gigs for a wide variety of artists including Elton John, Black Sabbath, Steely Dan, José Feliciano, The Ramones, Deep Purple, Yes, Ike and Tina Turner, War and Talking Heads. By the late-1970s Ed had entered the field of artist management. The first artist he represented as a manager was Gerry Rafferty . Rafferty enjoyed enormous commercial success from 1978 to1980, particularly in the U.S., with his albums City to City (which featured the worldwide number one hit Baker Street ) and Night Owl . Among the list of artists Ed has managed at some time or other are Paul Brady, Scott Walker and Bryan Ferry . He is currently “helping out” The Blue Nile with a view to possibly establishing a formal management arrangement and Australian singer Sally Boyden . Ed says modestly, “I would estimate that the artists I have represented in a management capacity have sold a combined total of over 120 million albums.”

Towards the end of 1977 Ed was working at the NEMS agency when he got a call from Phonogram A&R man John Stainze who had just signed a new band called Dire Straits to the Vertigo label. He wanted Ed to fix them up with some gigs. Ed was invited round to Phonogram’s offices in December where he heard the now famous Charlie Gillett demo tape. After “the cheapest Greek meal I’ve ever had in my life” Ed was taken to Dingwalls Club in North London to check out and meet Dire Straits . The date was the 13th of December, 1977, and as he walked into the club they were playing Down To The Waterline. Ed recalls, “The first thing I noticed was that it wasn’t necessary to stand at the back of the room; they were very quiet. I’d just done The Ramones , who were deafening……The second thing I noticed was that Mark was playing a red Stratocaster, which immediately made me think of Hank Marvin, who I had idolised in the sixties.” After hearing two or three numbers Ed had made up his mind that he didn’t just want to act as an agent for Dire Straits , he wanted to manage them. He just happened to be in the process of organising a tour for Talking Heads and was able to put his new band on the bill as the support act. Dire Straits were paid £50 per night for the Talking Heads tour; a ten-fold increase from their fee at Dingwalls. The rest – as is often said – is history. By the mid-1980s Dire Straits had released one of the best selling albums of all time and been tagged ‘the biggest band in the world’. To date, Mark Knopfler/Dire Straits have sold millions of singles and have just passed the magical 100 million album sales!

Ed’s reputation in the music industry is legendary. He is the Managing Director of Damage Management Limited and Musicworks Limited, both artist management companies in the field of popular music. In recent years he has become increasingly involved in the industry side of the music business and has frequently appeared on radio and TV to discuss music industry matters. He has conducted many interviews at music industry conferences. Among those interviewed have been Walter Yetnikoff of Sony/Velvel, Clive Davis of Arista, Freddy DeMann of Maverick – formally the long-term manager of Madonna, Gary Gersh of Capitol Records, Sir George Martin, Atlantic Records founder Jerry Wexler, music industry lawyer Allan Grubman, Jonathan King, Alice Cooper, Malcolm McLaren, Wolfman Jack, Miles Copeland, manager of The Police and Sting , Led Zeppelin manager, Peter Grant, and the Kinks ‘ Ray Davies. In 1992 Ed argued that CDs were too expensive when he appeared before the House of Commons Select Committee on National Heritage during hearings on the pricing of compact discs. He was also asked to appear before the Mergers and Monopolies Commission during it’s enquiry into price-fixing in the record industry. Ed served on the Princes Trust Committee from 1983 until 1987 and in 1997 was a member of Sir George Martin’s Music For Montserrat Committee. He is a founder-member and former Vice-Chairman of the International Managers Forum (IMF) which exists to deal with industry-wide matters where they affect artists and their management. The IMF currently has a membership of over 500 managers representing some 4000 musicians. In September 1998 Ed was presented with theprestigious Peter Grant Lifetime Achievement Award at the IMF’s annual British Music Roll of Honour.

Ed Bicknell ranks high in the premier league of popular music managers, but he is also a musician in his own right. As any Notting Hillbillies fan will tell you, Ed is a whiz on the drums! He began playing drums as a teenager in Tadcaster where he studied from the Buddy Rich Drum Tutor under the close supervision of his teacher, Alick Sidebottom. While still at school he formed a band called The Spartans and is remembered as having brought the junior boys’ playground to a halt when all the boys crowded round the window of music room 2 listening to the band’s rendition of The Shadows’ FBI. The session was brought to an abrupt end by the school’s headmaster – Ed’s dad! In the 1970s Ed played drums with a number of bands, including the “embryonic” Average White Band , and even did a stint on the Variety-club circuit with Jess Conrad . Despite being featured in the line-up of The Acetones for Mark Knopfler’s Local Hero soundtrack in 1983, the management deal with Dire Straits more or less put an end to Ed’s career as a drummer. Then, in 1988, Mark began work on what was to become the platinum selling Notting Hillbillies album, Missing….Presumed Having A Good Time with long-time pals Steve Phillips and Brendan Croker . During a meal in a Notting Hill wine bar, Mark sat next to Ed and said “OK, Ed; we’ve formed a band, and you’re the drummer!” They planned a tour to promote the Missing…. album and began six weeks of punishing rehearsals. Ed remembers that “everything ached; legs, ankles, wrists.” Just before the first concert Mark said “right – now forget everything you’ve learned and just have a good time…” He did, he still does.

Ed is a great one for stories – his anecdotes are infamous. He will muse about how he once nearly managed Van Morrison or the Spice Girls and he will worry about an on-coming recession until recalling that he need not be too concerned as he has managed to put a little spare cash in the bank. He once told me a story about when he was young, dreaming about becoming the next Buddy Rich. He remembers watching the master play, wide-eyed and totally awe struck. He went home and almost gave up.

Ed Bicknell – the ‘Silver Fox’ as Brendan Croker calls him – managed Mark Knopfler/Dire Straits from December 1977 until the end of August 2000. During those 22 plus years he reached the pinnacle of success but he has never forgotten his roots or what it is to be a fan. He is a warm and generous man, who always finds time for fans no matter how busy he is – thanks Ed.

With thanks to Terry Kilburn who wrote the original article in 2000.

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As the creation of Mark Knopfler, they successfully blended blues-based influences along with country and rock into an instantly timeless mix of atmospheric album tracks, combined with populist, catchy and massive-selling singles.

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Dire Straits have been acknowledged as one of the most intelligent and original bands of their era. As the creation of Mark Knopfler, they successfully blended blues-based influences along with country and rock into an instantly timeless mix of atmospheric album tracks, combined with populist, catchy and massive-selling singles. Although they will rightly always be remembered for their sixth studio album,  Brothers In Arms , there is so much more to discover in their discrete, influential catalogue.

Mark Knopfler was born in Glasgow on 12 August 1949, before relocating with his family to Blyth, Northumberland at the age of seven, where he attended Gosforth Grammar School with his younger brother David. Both brothers were enchanted by music: Mark joined various school outfits and David was singing in folk clubs by his mid-teens. In 1967 Mark studied journalism at Harlow Technical College, and subsequently became a junior reporter on the Yorkshire Evening Post. At the turn of the 1970s, Knopfler went to study English at Leeds University. It was during this period that Knopfler and Steve Philips formed a duo, The Duolian String Pickers. Relocating to London, Knopfler joined Brewer’s Droop after answering an advert in Melody Maker. He recorded with them and made the acquaintance of their drummer, Pick Withers. While Knopfler taught at Loughton College, he kept his hand in with pub band, Cafe Racers. David Knopfler, who had been to Bristol Polytechnic, came to London to work as a social worker.

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In April 1977, Mark Knopfler moved to Deptford, South London, to join David, and his flatmate, John Illsley, who was proficient on bass. With Knopfler’s stockpile of songs, they enlisted Pick Withers on drums and were christened Dire Straits by a friend of Withers. A unique mixture of rock, country, soul and funk, they were championed by BBC London DJ Charlie Gillett, who heard their five-song demo tape and played it on his Honky Tonk show. On the strength of the tape, by October 1977 the group had signed with Phonogram Records, enlisting veteran producer Muff Winwood to produce their first album. Dire Straits emerged at the time of new wave, and to the untrained eye, looked hardly any different to the premier art-punk bands of the day, Television and Talking Heads. The group supported Talking Heads on tour, and Straits’ chippy, angular take on artists such as JJ Cale chimed with the times. A review of one of their January 1978 gigs, by Chas DeWhalley in Sounds, quickly spotted Mark Knopfler’s greatness, saying he “leads his four-piece band twisting and turning his body, jabbing his elbows and bending his fingers into the most fearsome of chordal inversions and then slipping in and out of the rhythms like an escapologist extraordinaire.”

Released in mid-1978, their self-titled debut  album seemed somewhat out of kilter with the times, and indeed, after a modest beginning, did not initially perform strongly in the UK. It was only when Warner Brothers became interested in the band in the US, and their concerts over there were well-received, that word began to spread back to their home country. The re-released  ‘ Sultans Of Swing ‘  became an enormous hit, and increasing numbers enjoyed the mellow jaggedness of the group’s debut. The album reached No. 5 in the UK charts and stayed on the listings for a remarkable 132 weeks. In the US they became a critical and commercial sensation. Such was their success that Bob Dylan invited Mark Knopfler and Pick Withers to play on his Slow Train Coming album.

Produced by R&B legend Jerry Wexler, Dire Straits’ second album,  Communique , is the great, unearthed gem in their catalogue. Although a sizeable hit at the time, it has been somewhat overlooked because of the scale of what went before and what was to happen next. Wexler had been impressed, as he wrote in his autobiography, “Mark Knopfler is a remarkably versatile guitarist and a luminous musical mind – Dire Straits was an example of how funky Englishmen can be when they pay attention.

David Knopfler was to leave the group in 1980 during sessions for their next album,  Making Movies . Recorded with Jimmy Iovine, the album contained Knopfler’s next classic, ‘Romeo And Juliet’, a perfect everyman love song that became a worldwide hit, as well as stage favourites ‘Tunnel Of Love’ and ‘Solid Rock’. The group’s sound was becoming more expansive, and the presence of keyboard player Roy Bittan added a touch of Bruce Springsteen’s sound into the mix.  Love Over Gold   showed the group developing further. Releasing an album with a 14-minute opening track in 1982 was not exactly fashionable, but then that was something Dire Straits never worried about. Dense, atmospheric and unusual ‘Telegraph Road’ demonstrated how far outside the mainstream Knopfler was happy to work. The album’s lead single, ‘Private Investigations’, a moody, seven-minute semi-spoken piece, became the group’s biggest single hit to date, reaching No. 2 in the UK charts. After the album sessions concluded, Pick Withers left the group to pursue individual projects. He was replaced by ex-Man drummer Terry Williams. The worldwide tour that followed spawned the much-loved 1984 double live album,  Alchemy , recorded at Hammersmith Odeon the previous year. But nothing could compare to what happened next…

It had been a tremendous journey. For Knopfler, the way to follow up such a multi-million hit was simple: do nothing. Aside from playing the Nelson Mandela birthday concert in June 1988 and a chart-topping greatest hits collection, Money For Nothing , the group was mothballed until 1991. Knopfler had fun with side project the Notting Hillbillies, and he issued an album with one of his musical heroes, Chet Atkins. In 1991 Knopfler and Illsley reconvened with long-term keyboard players Guy Fletcher and Alan Clark and a variety of musicians to make  On Every Street , which was released in September 1991. Had it been released by anyone else, it would have been a much-loved and well-received album. In the wake of Brothers In Arms , comparisons were out before a note of music was heard. It reached No. 1 in the UK and No. 12 in the US. Singles ‘Calling Elvis’ and ‘The Bug’ were interesting and sprightly but failed to connect with a mass audience. The supporting tour certainly did, however. Over seven million people saw the group on the tour, which started in Dublin in August 1991, concluding in October of the following year in Zaragoza, Spain. The experience left Knopfler drained, and as a result, Dire Straits were finally laid to rest, with the live album, On Every Night , from May 1993, a closing souvenir.

Aside from a couple of charity reunions of Knopfler and Illsley, that, so far, is it. Mark Knopfler has gone on to release a series of well-received solo albums and regularly features Dire Straits material in his live set. An album of the group’s BBC sessions in June 1995, and a collection that spanned the best of Knopfler’s and Dire Straits’ catalogue, The Best of Dire Straits & Mark Knopfler – Private Investigations , was released in 2005, alongside the 20th Anniversary SACD of Brothers In Arms , which garnered a Grammy for Best Surround Sound.

The craft and majesty of Dire Straits live on. It is impossible not to hear one of their high-period songs emanating from a radio or on the television on a weekly basis. Brothers in Arms is ingrained deep in the popular psyche. Mark Knopfler is one of the world’s most enduring guitarists and songwriters. If you haven’t enjoyed some of their tracks beyond the hits, Dire Straits are a group with a heritage ripe to discover.

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Dire Straits Bio

Mark Knopfler made Dire Straits one of the most successful bands of the middle-Eighties with virtuoso musicianship, wry humor, and a knack for writing popular music that didn’t sacrifice either — as evidenced on hits like “Sultans of Swing,” “Money for Nothing,” and “Romeo and Juliet.” As a solo artist, the British singer-guitarist-songwriter composed scores for films including  The Princess Bride . After Dire Straits broke-up in 1995, he released a series of solo albums that received critical acclaim but never matched Dire Straits’ commercial success.

Mark and David Knopfler, sons of an architect, both learned guitar in their teens. Mark became a rock critic at the  Yorkshire Evening Post  while working for an English degree. He then taught problem students at Loughton College and an adult extension course, worked in South London pub bands, and wrote songs.

By early 1977, Mark was teaching literature part-time and jamming with David (then a social worker) and David’s roommate, John Illsley, a timber broker who was pursing a sociology degree at the University of London. In July 1977, after rehearsing with studio drummer Pick Withers, the group made a five-track demo tape that included “Sultans of Swing.” Critic and DJ Charlie Gillett played “Sultans” on his BBC radio show, “Honky Tonkin’,” and listeners and record companies responded.

The band got an offer to open for Talking Heads on a 1978 U.K. tour, and afterwards, spent 12 days and about $25,000 to record  Dire Straits  (Number Two, 1979), which eventually sold 3 million copies in the U.S. and approximately 11 million copies worldwide. The album featured Knopfler’s Dylanesque minor-key songs and his limpid mixture of J.J. Cale’s and Albert King’s guitar styles. It also introduced the Dire Straits trademark, a dialogue between Knopfler’s vocals and guitar lines, as heard in the group’s first hit “Sultans of Swing” (Number Four, 1979).

Jerry Wexler and Barry Beckett produced the quickly recorded follow-up,  Communique  (Number 11, 1979), which eventually sold 8 million copies worldwide but produced no significant U.S. or U.K. hits.

During sessions for  Making Movies  in July 1980, David Knopfler left, and E Street Band pianist Roy Bittan sat in. Along with Knopfler, future Interscope mogul Jimmy Iovine produced the album, which included longer songs with more layered arrangements. The 1980 album hit Number Four in the states, Number 19 in the U.K. and included the minor hit and MTV favorite “Skateaway” (Number 58, 1980) and the story-telling classic “Romeo and Juliet,” which hit Number Eight in the U.K. but didn’t catch on in the U.S. until years later.

Love Over Gold  (Number 19, 1982), with no singles-length cuts, went gold and topped the U.K. chart. Later, Withers departed and was replaced by ex-Rockpile drummer Terry Williams. Tommy Mandel also joined.

By 1985, Dire Straits had perfected its radio-ready sounds and released the 26-million-selling, worldwide smash  Brothers in Arms , featuring three hit singles: “Money for Nothing,” featuring Sting (Number One), “Walk of Life” (Number Seven), and “So Far Away” ( Number 19). “Money for Nothing” and it’s clever, partially animated video—which mocked both rock stars and the budding music channel—became an MTV staple, ultimately pushing Brothers in Arms beyond 9 million in U.S. sales.

By then, Knopfler had had his hand in a number of outside projects, including producing Aztec Camera’s  Knife  and Bob Dylan’s  Infidels , writing one of Tina Turner’s comeback hits, “Private Dancer,” and scoring films like  Local Hero ,  Cal ,  The Princess Bride , and  Last Exit to Brooklyn . Knopfler’s film music was anthologized on 1993’s  Screenplaying .

With  Brothers  still riding the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, Knopfler continued pursuing his own projects, appearing on Joan Armatrading’s  The Shouting Stage , co-producing Randy Newman’s  Land of Dreams , and recording with his idol, country guitar master Chet Atkins. (To date, Knopfler and Atkins have won three Grammys for their duet recordings.) In 1988, following appearances at Nelson Mandela’s 70th Birthday Party concert at Wembley Stadium and Knopfler’s tour with Eric Clapton, Dire Straits went on a two-year hiatus.

Knopfler returned to recording with Guy Fletcher and the Notting Hillbillies, a side project with Brendan Croker, Paul Franklin, Ed Bicknell, and Steve Phillips. The group’s debut album,  Missing…Presumed Having a Good Time , was a phenomenal hit in the U.K., where it entered the chart at Number Two. It was not nearly as successful in the U.S., peaking at #52, despite an appearance on  Saturday Night Live . Meanwhile,  Money for Nothing , a Dire Straits greatest-hits compilation, went platinum, peaking at Number 62 in the U.S. but topping the charts in 28 other countries.

Give the group’s high profile in the mid-1980s and the six years that had elapsed between new albums, 1991  On Every Street , was expected to generate great interest. In the U.S., the album peaked at Number 12 and eventually went platinum, but an ensuing tour (captured on 1993’s  On the Night ) was not a hot ticket and no hit single emerged. Critics have speculated that Brother in Arms may have been a fluke, succeeding commercially as a departure from the group’s usual more laid-back style.

In 1996, a year after quietly closing the book on Dire Straits, Knopfler released his first non-soundtrack solo album,  Golden Heart  (Number 105). He returned to film scoring in 1998 with  Wag the Dog  and 1999’s  Metroland . In February of 2000, Knopfler made the Queen of England’s New Year’s Honors List and a month later was given an OBE (Order of the British Empire) medal, awarded for outstanding contributions to country, at Buckingham Palace. The year also found him working on the soundtrack to the Robert Duvall /Michael Keaton film  Road to Glory .

Knopfler’s  Sailing to Philadelphia  in 2000 and  The Ragpicker’s Dream  in 2002, after which he suffered several broken bones in a motorbike accident, forcing him to cancel a subsequent tour. He recovered and recorded Shangri-La (2004) in the Malibu, California studio where the Band had worked. A tour followed, take Knopfler to previously unvisited realms including the United Arab Emirates and India, where he was well-received.

The singer’s biggest solo success came with 2006 album, which debuted at Number 17 in the U.S. (and higher in many parts of the world, including Number One in Denmark and Switzerland) and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Americana/Folk Album—he lost to Dylan’s  Modern Times . Knopfler’s prodigious recording pace continued with  Kill to Get Crimson  in 2007 and  Get Lucky  in 2009.

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Archive for the ‘dire straits’ category, talking heads newcastle poly 27th jan 1978 and newcastle city hall 27th nov 1979.

Posted by vintagerock in A Certain Ratio , Dire Straits , Talking Heads . Tagged: classic rock , concert , concerts , Dire Straits , gig , gigs , music , new wave , pop , rock , rock n roll . 13 comments

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Live aid wembley stadium 13th july 1985.

Posted by vintagerock in Adam and the Ants , Alison Moyet , Boomtown Rats , Bryan Ferry , David Bowie , David Gilmour , Dire Straits , Elton John , Elvis Costello , George Michael , Howard Jones , Kiki Dee , Nik Kershaw , Paul McCartney , Paul Young , Phil Collins , Queen , Spandau Ballet , Status Quo , Sting , Style Council , The Who , U2 , Ultravox! . Tagged: classic rock , concert , concerts , festival , gig , gigs , live aid , music , pop , rock , rock n roll . 5 comments

The Police Newcastle Mayfair 14 June 1979

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Dire Straits Newcastle City Hall 1980 and 1982

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Dire Straits in concert late 70s

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Talking Heads Concert History

Talking Heads Concert History. A project to list all the live performances by Talking Heads during their years of touring, 1975 to 1984.

Fear of Touring...

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