Guitar Stories: Mark Knopfler on the Six Guitars That Shaped His Career

When Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler was a kid growing up in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England, he dreamed about getting his own guitar. “I remember standing outside music stores with my nose pressed up against the glass, just staring at those electric guitars,” he told People magazine in 1985. “I used to smell Fender catalogs, I wanted one so bad.” Knopfler eventually talked his father into buying him a Höfner Super Solid V2 guitar for £50. The only problem was, it didn’t come with an amplifier. “I didn’t have the nerve to ask poor old dad for an amp,” Knopfler says in the documentary above. “I blew up the family radio in fairly short order.”

Knopfler tells the story of that first guitar and five others that shaped his career in this fascinating 45-minute documentary that aired in Britain last October on the Sky Arts television channel. Guitar Stories: Mark Knopfler is hosted by Knopfler’s friend and co-founder of Dire Straits, bassist John Illsley. The film offers a number of insights into Knopfler’s music and the key instruments that influenced his evolving style.

From the opening scenes at a music shop in Newcastle’s Central Arcade, where the young Knopfler spent hours staring at guitars through windows, Illsley and Knopfler move on to the city of Leeds, where Knopfler once worked as a junior reporter for the Yorkshire Evening Post. There they meet up with his longtime friend and mentor Steve Phillips, a member of Knopfler’s post-Dire Straits band The Notting Hillbillies. An aficionado of the Delta Blues, Phillips introduced the young Knopfler to the distinctive sound of  “resonator” acoustic guitars.

Although it wasn’t the first resonator guitar he ever owned, Knopfler chooses as his second key guitar a 1937 National Style “O” guitar he bought from Phillips in 1978. The distinctive nickel-plated brass guitar, with its palm tree etchings around the edges and on the back, was featured on the cover of Dire Straits’ bestselling 1985 album Brothers in Armsand was used for some of the band’s best songs. At one point in the film, Knopfler picks up the National and demonstrates how he hit on the famous arpeggio lines in “Romeo and Juliet,” from the Making Movies album, while experimenting with an open G tuning.

From Leeds, Illsley and Knopfler travel to the location of the original Pathway Studios in London, where they recorded their 1978 debut album, Dire Straits. Knopfler picks up his third key guitar, a 1961 Fender Stratocaster, and plays a few notes from the band’s breakthrough song, “Sultans of Swing.” The Stratocaster was the guitar Knopfler had always wanted, but as his music progressed he sought to diversify his sound. Knopfler’s fourth key guitar, which he played on Brothers in Arms, is a sunburst 1958 Gibson Les Paul. In one particularly interesting moment in the film, Knopfler explains how he came up with the distinctive guitar sound for the hit song “Money for Nothing” by playing the Les Paul through a static, partly depressed wah-wah pedal.

While touring with Dire Straits, Knopfler found it difficult to constantly change back and forth between guitars, so he decided to look for a single guitar that could produce a variety of sounds. To explain what happened next, Knopfler and Illsley travel to the SoHo neighborhood of New York, where they pay a visit to Rudy’s Music on Broome Street and talk to the proprietor, Knopfler’s longtime friend Rudy Pensa, who has built custom guitars since 1982. Knopfler and Pensa describe their collaboration on the design of Knopfler’s fifth key guitar, the Pensa MK-1, which he played during his final years with Dire Straits.

The film ends with a visit to the Long Island workshop of master luthier John Monteleone. In 2008 Monteleone built the sixth key guitar in Knopfler’s life, the acoustic “Isabella” archtop, named after Knopfler’s eldest daughter. Knopfler was so inspired by Monteleone’s craftsmanship that he wrote a song called “Monteleone” for his 2009 solo album, Get Lucky. The song speaks eloquently of Knopfler’s admiration of Monteleone and, between the lines perhaps, of his lifelong love affair with guitars:

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Comments (17)
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  • Mark Knofler is by far one of the most amazing guitarist in the world. Someone that everybody should be amazed of.

  • Just watched the programme and his journey on guitars is inspiring and his playing is flawless

  • Trevor Mac Mckelvey says:

    so inspiring one of my favorites so much to learn will keep on trying.

  • Doug Eyres says:

    What a fantastic hour really enjoyed listening to the show and watching possibly the Greatest Guitar players of our time.

  • Jim Racz says:

    Enjoyed it very much, recommended it to a couple of friends as well. Been a fan since I first
    heard Sultans Of Swing. Also kind of neat that we share the same nationality

  • Hoyt Maulden says:

    80s Guitar hero, maker of melodies, writer of movie scores, friend of Chet Atkins, friend to all who love great music. Did I say Maker of Melodies? What a great privilege to accompany Illsley and Knopfer while they reminisce with old friends and revisit the origins of Mark’s guitars. There may be guitarists who can occasionally equal Knopfler. IMHO, no living guitarist can surpass Knopfler’s body of work, his melodies foremost, his playing, his personal classiness. Thanks to all.

  • Lisa Hyyppa says:

    Most impressive

  • Jürgen H. says:

    Hello from Germany,
    thanks for this wonderful MK-GuitarStories :-)
    A great Artist………his Music inspired me listening Music real audiophil!! in the 80s :-) …………
    and starting playing a guitar in an advanced age (now 49,started with 42!)

    JH

  • Vx says:

    its beautiful…..nothing better than watching/feeling two guitarists hookup… marc & steve Phillips…they start playing & theres a shot of marc looking at steve..both smiling..lovin the feel….connecting
    However I was disappointed.. there was a conversation around musical/feel influences within Dire S & why.
    They couldn’t identify the why….
    Seriously….
    ..after listening to the story of marcs experience with each guitar & how they heightened his ability to master his craft/his sound….his lyrics .. loved the way he picked up lyrics…eg monte leone.
    …enjoyed it

  • Kevin benningfield says:

    Love this video, I,ll keep coming back. O yah

  • Davoroups says:

    Actually the guitar built at Rudy’s guitar shop was made by John Suhr not Mr Pensa, his name is clearly seen on the headstock of the MK1 but was never mentioned. John Suhr went on to build quite a few more for Mark before he left Rudy’s. His self named guitars have since become legendary, unlike Pensas. Sad that nether Mark nor Rudi give John the proper credit where it is due….Well, it sucks actually. I’m sure people will come to your own conclusions.

  • Rob says:

    Agreed. An otherwise interesting programme, this was spoiled for me by the revisionist history involving the Pensa-SUHR MK1.

  • Forby says:

    Apparently John Suhr had a lot of the MK1 built, as it was originally for himself, before Rudy Pensa thought it would be a guitar Knopfler could use at the Nelson Mandela gig. They went for coffee and Knopfler suggested a tapered headstock etc but the guitar was so far built it couldnt be done. He did get no pickup ring on the EMG 85 humbucker as requested though. Shame John Suhr didnt get a mention. He was the luthier that built it

  • D.C. Welker says:

    You might want to research a bit more as Mark Knopfler uses Schecter Dream Machines

  • Ted Taylor says:

    I was driving along in my car the first time I heard the guitar playing on “Sultans of Swing”. I thought who the “F” is that and I pulled over and stopped to make sure that I heard the artist’s name. It blew me the “F” away.

  • Morgan knox says:

    As much as I love MK dire straits and all things knopfler and guitar do we as fans have to spock, out on articles authors and fellow fans yo DC mellow out

  • Brenda says:

    I have been listening to Dire Strait ( Mark Knopfler) for years. I love his guitar playing and their music. It’s awesome. I do mean years. Since my Son was very little, he would have been 37, on My 7th, but a drunk driver killed him in April of 2001.

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