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The Latest Breaking News from Mark Knopfler

“She had scratches on the side of her face. I said, ‘What happened?’She said, ‘Oh nothing, Keith threw the cat at me’”: Bill Wyman on Jimi Hendrix’s brilliance, Keith Moon’s madness and Mick Jagger’s brutal reaction to him leaving the Rolling Stones

The Beatles, The Who, Jimi Hendrix – ex-Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman has known them all

Louder

“I pushed him towards the Les Paul. I can see him now, holding those notes. I don’t think he could have played those parts on any other guitar”: Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits’ inner circle look back on Brothers in Arms – their world conquering “fluke”

Brothers In Arms reinvented Knopfler and gave him more fame than he could handle. 40 years on, in a rare interview, the band look back on thebiggest rock album of the '80s

Guitar World

“That song should have been finished on an Eagles record with Joe and I following up on Hotel California with some dazzling guitar solos”: The song that started life as an Eagles track – but ended up as the theme song for an animated film

Plans for a Hotel California sequel were in motion, but the track wouldn’t emerge from the Eagles archive until a few years later

Guitar World

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“I confess I pushed him more towards the Les Paul sound. I felt a resistance early on. But I persevered”: Why Mark Knopfler’s guitar tech convinced him to play Les Pauls – and how they impacted his tone and playing

Knopfler is forever linked to the Fender Strat – however, to successfully convey the emotional weight required on Brothers in Arms, his tech pushed him towards Gibsons

Guitar World

A rare 12-string guitar that Mark Knopfler “borrowed” for 50 years is now up for auction

The guitar was originally owned by his friend, Lindisfarne's Jeff Sadler – and was played on the Dire Straits' sophomore album, Communiqué

Guitar World

"The fallout was much bigger than anything we could ever have foreseen": Dire Straits and the adventure of Brothers In Arms

Everything changed for Dire Straits when they made Brothers In Arms: Mark Knopfler, John Illsley and Guy Fletcher look back

Louder

“People have bought tickets and you can see them thinking, ‘That’s not ‘Brothers in Arms’”: Mark Knopfler on why one of the Dire Straits’ most iconic tracks hinges on this four-note guitar intro

The Dire Straits guitarist reflects on the songwriting process of some of the band’s classic tracks

Guitar World

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"Once I’ve played those four notes, then I can start to improvise”: Mark Knopfler on the Dire Straits song he's come to accept that he has to start in the same way every time

"People have bought tickets," he says

MusicRadar

“Being called a guitar hero was just awkward. Whether I’ve written a good song or not, that’s what counts to me”: Mark Knopfler on 40 years of Dire Straits’ Brothers In Arms – the guitars, the riffs… the pressure of learning to play in time

From his lucky ’83 Les Paul and Fleetwood Mac-inspired soloing to “getting away with murder” at the sessions, the Dire Straits legend opens up in his most revealing interview in years

Guitar World

“I get a lot more feeling when I play with my fingers. Wes Montgomery was my reference as a kid for not using a pick”: Championed by Fender and signed to Blue Note, Maya Delilah might just be the most melodic guitar soloist since John Mayer

After being named as a member of Fender’s Class of 2024 and lauded as a 2025 Spotify Artist to Watch, Maya Delilah makes good on those promises with her Blue Note debut, The Long Way Around

Guitar World

“I could hardly believe it when James reached over to the guitar case sitting opposite and lifted out his Olson acoustic”: What I learned from interviewing folk-rock icon James Taylor

Neville Marten recalls interviews with one of his musical idols, the singer-songwriter supreme and total legend, the great JT himself

Guitar World

'They saved my mental health': BBC Radio 2 host Shaun Keaveny calls on government to protect canals

The presenter says canal walks have become essential to managing his ADHD - and wants ministers to protect these spaces for the millions who rely on them

Evening Standard

“Chet had such facility and knowledge, and yet what he wanted to do was play two chords all morning long. He’d say to me, ‘You’re pretty good, but you’re no Mark Knopfler’”: Mark Knopfler looks back on his jams with fellow fingerstyle legend Chet Atkins

The pair traded licks after the release of Brothers in Arms, and went on to release an album together

Guitar World

“He reached under the sofa and pulled out this dusty old case. And he says, ‘Mark, I want you to have this guitar. I don’t play it anymore’”: Mark Knopfler on the treasured Gibson he received as a gift from a rock hero – which became his studio go-to

Last year, Knopfler parted ways with 120 of his prized instruments for charity, including much of the Brothers in Arms gear

Guitar World

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Louder

This iconic guitar appeared on the cover of one of the most successful albums ever – but what’s the story behind it?

It’s one of the most famous guitars in music – and its picture is in more than 30 million homes

Guitar World

“I gave up trying to be a great guitar player. I have enough to get by in the studio – I got away with murder”: Mark Knopfler on why he doesn’t consider himself a “guitar god” – and the ones in the industry who deserve that title

40 years after the release of the Dire Straits’ seminal album, Brothers in Arms, Knopfler reflects on that game-changing period and why he was always a reluctant rock star

Guitar World

“I didn’t take it to the extreme of getting into trouble”: Mark Knopfler recorded this solo on a cheap guitar and did “everything wrong” with it – but it’s still his favorite

One iconic cut from his solo work sticks out for the right reasons, Knopfler believes

MusicRadar

“It’s a cheap guitar, it sounds very direct, I did everything wrong, but I think they’re perfect notes”: Mark Knopfler names his favourite guitar solo

“I just said what I had to say. I didn’t go too far”

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Louder

How Dire Straits outsold everyone, hijacked MTV, and accidentally made a classic: Only in the new issue of Classic Rock

Also in this issue: Iron Maiden, Alice Cooper, Mike Peters, Buckcherry, Adam Duritz, Battlesnake, Eureka Machines, H.E.A.T, Steve Lillywhite, Live Aid USA and more

MusicRadar

“Playing four notes to the bar with your thumb... That changed everything for me, because that’s what I wanted to be able to do”: How Mark Knopfler grew up wanting to be Jimi Hendrix until he ditched the pick and went fingerstyle

Or how one lesson with a folk singer from the northeast of England (and a bunch of lost picks) changed the history of electric guitar

Louder

"Pure manna for a fanbase denied any whiff of a reunion": Dire Straits' 30-million-selling Brothers In Arms celebrates its 40th birthday with energised extras

Mark Knopfler’s crowning achievement: mildly dated, largely evocative, expanded with live shows

MusicRadar

"Everybody was going 'Does anybody know how to work this thing?'": How Guy Fletcher and a classic ‘80s synth became Dire Straits’ secret weapon on Brothers In Arms, and helped to turn it into one of the biggest albums of the decade

“Without him there, we would have probably been completely lost"

MusicRadar

“I remember thinking: ‘Wouldn’t it be great if I could ask Sting to sing that line?’ Suddenly someone said: ‘Sting’s here on holiday! He’s on the beach!’” How Mark Knopfler got lucky with Money For Nothing

It’s amazing who you can bump into in the Caribbean…

The Guardian - UK

Mark Knopfler on Dire Straits’ Money for Nothing: ‘I wrote it in the window display of a New York appliance store’

‘A big bonehead of a delivery guy was looking at all these TV screens tuned to MTV and the lines he was saying were too good to be true. So I borrowed a pen and paper, sat down and started writing’

Louder

“He thought that the band should be a democracy, and it was more like a brutal dictatorship as far as he was concerned”: The tangled story of Dire Straits, the million-selling band who quit at the height of their fame

How Dire Straits went from the pubs of London to become one of the biggest bands of the 1980s

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