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oh and his is one of the real bursts too, the real deal 58

I thought he played everything on a steel resonator...

Bg wrote: Love a lot of dire straits. Knopfler is from the right side of the north - the east side.
Throughout his solo career he sings about stuff and places I know. He sings about places I don't know. He is a consummate song writer first - he writes pictures with words and music. Such a great talent.

he truly is a storyteller. Love his honest tales about normal people being normal

null_pointer wrote:I thought he played everything on a steel resonator...

Yeah he found it too uncomfortable and found a chair instead.

couldnt stand DS but i love his recent stuff
true love will never fade....are we in trouble now? etc.

jeremyb wrote:

null_pointer wrote:I thought he played everything on a steel resonator...

Yeah he found it too uncomfortable and found a chair instead.

The chair was way harder to string though

null_pointer wrote:

jeremyb wrote:

null_pointer wrote:I thought he played everything on a steel resonator...

Yeah he found it too uncomfortable and found a chair instead.

The chair was way harder to string though

Yeah but what about that base!

Bg wrote:

I'm sure slowly will endorse this.... it may not be your style but, its perfect in every detail. And its an 'album filler'

This is sonic jewellery!

olegmcnoleg wrote: Both dead on. He is a fantastic musician and guitar player, and a great song-writer. He chose to go less commercial and folky/rootsy and I think a lot of his more recent music downplays his abilities a bit more than I'd personally like. But he's just a humble Geordie, after all...

Dire Straits was enough career for any musician; 6 hit albums.
Since he 'retired', Knopfler has made 9 soundtrack albums and 10 albums of original songs (soon to be 11).

What impresses me, is that unlike many growing older musicians, he keeps getting better. His focus now is more on the singer/songwriter than the guitarist and his song craft; lyrics, arrangements, production, musical diversity and melody are of the highest quality imaginable. His band is cherry picked from the world's finest musicians and they have a comfortable decade and a half of playing together. The band is a joy to listen to.

Even his voice has improved. As a young man, it had a rough distinctiveness. Compare that to his duet with the celestially voiced Ruth Moody. (Wherever I Go. Off the Tracker album).

I can spend hours just listening to how he puts a song together; it's never what you'd expect.

So I guess that means it's a from me.

Darth Sabbathi wrote:

werdna wrote:The first two DS albums - melodic lead playing, great phrasing, good song writing. His legacy.

Later DS is bloated and portentous. Awful cod 50s rocknroll feel to Walk of Life - worst song of the 80s?

I basically agree with this, but I would stretch to the first 3 Dire Straits albums - I reckon Making Movies is awesome. I cannot abide Brothers in Arms - it embodies everything I hate about the 1980s.

He's an incredible and unique player - hard to deny that, even if you don't really dig his style.

Seconded/thirded.

But to be fair, I've listened to nothing from the last 20 years. Tried one of his solo albums and a few songs deep, there was no big "Money For Nothing" riff so I was out. Still not 'mature' enough to revisit it.

HappyEnding wrote: Tried one of his solo albums and a few songs deep, there was no big "Money For Nothing" riff so I was out. Still not 'mature' enough to revisit it.

This is a fair comment. He's an old man now so it's reasonable to expect him to be writing old man music. Luckily for you, young HappyEnding, you have a treasure trove of delights waiting in your future.

That neck pickup on a Les Paul tone he has is just epic.

Bg wrote:oh and his is one of the real bursts too, the real deal 58

And his backup is a '59

Slowy wrote:
What impresses me, is that unlike many growing older musicians, he keeps getting better.

I've always been dead impressed that, rather than move to the country to cultivate an enormous drug habit, he simply went and jammed a lot with other guitarists. . As one does. And fuck the fame and the DS comeback tours.

The only stuff of his I have is him guesting for other people

I like that he has his own thing, as in you can hear it's MK playing that guitar part.

On paper it's the easiest thing in the world to sound like yourself but clearly it isn't. So well done that man.