I recently watched the video clips of Dire Straits performing Sultans of Swing and Lions live on the British Old Grey Whistle Test again. It is one of the earliest videos that exist, recorded in Manchester on May 15, 1978, about three months after the first CD. Sultans of Swing Lions Let’s have a look at the gear we can see in this clip. Knopfler plays his red maple neck […]
A red Stratocaster has always been one of THE rock’n’roll logos – something that started with Hank Marvin, guitarist of the Shadows, who had the first red Strat in England. He started a desire for exactly this guitar among thousand of English kids in the early 60ies, one of these was a kid named Mark Knopfler. In fact it was rather coincidence that Hank Marvin got a red Strat: he […]
According to an interview with Guitar Player magazin from 1979, Mark Knopfler played a DiMarzio pick-up in one of his two red Fender Stratocasters that he played around the time of Dire Straits’ first two albums: On one there’s a DiMarzio pickup for the bass, and I like it because it just seems to give a fatter, louder sound, with more clout than the standard pickup Fender uses. DiMarzio has […]
Have you ever wondered why Mark Knopfler’s Gibson Les Pauls (he has a ’58, a ’59, and some replicas of late 50ies models) differ so much in their colour? And what is the colour called, simply sunburst, or is it cherry sunburst, or tobacco sunburst? Have you ever heard the term ‘unburst’? The answer is simple: all those Les Paul Standards from that era (they were only built in this […]
Today I surfed into the Strat-Talk.com forum where I found a photo album with 12 famous dream guitars. Among these were some Strats and Teles of David Gilmour, George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix, and three guitars of Mark Knopfler (the red Schecter Strat and Tele, and the red Fender), all in the same high resolution. The question: Are these real or are they fakes? You can use the comment function to […]
The bootleg Dire Straits – Leeds – January 30 (31?), 1978 is one of the earliest Dire Straits live recordings (actually the only earlier live recording is only one song – Eastbound Train from the Hope & Anchor pub, London, December 1977). This bootleg concert was recorded about one week before the recoding sessions for the very first Dire Straits album. This gig was the last of a short England […]
On the Making movies tour in 1981, Mark Knopfler played a Rickenbacker guitar on Portobello Belle. To my knowledge only one single picture exists with this guitar which is the one below. Since I have this picture at a rather high resolution, I also put in an enlarged version with just that guitar. I would be lying if I said I am an expert on Rickenbacker guitars, so feel free […]
Here is an original drawing from Schecter Guitar Research showing the wiring layout of a vintage Schecter Stratocaster pickguard with those F500T pick-ups. I found it in an old German book about guitar electronics from the 80ies, and it seems to be pretty rare so I want to share it with you. It is the same layout that should originally have been in all of Mark Knopfler’s Schecter Strats. An […]
In 1980 Mark Knopfler bought some Schecter guitars (probably 4 Strats and a Telecaster) at Rudy’s Music Stop in New York. These were two red Strats (see my article about these here), one blue Strat, a black Telecaster, and a wonderful sunburst Strat. The last was the guitar that was played on the song Tunnel of Love on the Making Movies album. It seems he liked especially this one very […]
When I started playing the guitar in 1979 (after hearing a certain Mark Knopfler playing Sultans of Swing) I wanted a Strat of course. At that time Fender made exactly one model – the “Stratocaster”, no Deluxe, Standard, Hot Rod, Super, Extra, and the like – only and simply the “Stratocaster”. On the other hand you had Japanese copies by a zillion of manufacturers it seems. At that time nobody […]