Mark Knopfler is best known as the lead guitarist, singer, and songwriter of the band Dire Straits. He accumulated an impressive collection of guitars, amplifiers, and other instruments, and he has now decided it’s time to let many of them go on to new homes.
Mark Knopfler + Dire Straits
Knopfler was born in Glasgow, Scotland to an English mother and a Hungarian Jewish father who had fled Hungary in 1939 to escape persecution by the Nazis. Early in his life Mark was influenced by his uncle Kingsley’s harmonica and piano playing in the “boogie-woogie” style that was popular at the time.
As a young man in the 1960s he formed and joined a number of bands, the most notable of which was called Brewers Droop. He would later become a lecturer at Loughton College in Essex but he remained active in the music scene, playing pub gigs for a band called the Café Racers.
Mark founded the band Dire Straits in 1977 with former members of the Café Racers including his brother David Knopfler and John Illsley, they chose Pick Withers as their drummer. The band achieved their first big hit with “Sultans of Swing” in late 1978, this would be followed by a slew of other hits including “Romeo and Juliet,” “Private Investigations,” “Twisting by the Pool,” “Money for Nothing,” and “Walk of Life.”
The group disbanded in 1988 and then reformed in 1990 for five years, in the years since Knopfler has enjoyed an extensive career as a solo artist which included writing the musical scores for nine films including Local Hero (1983), Cal (1984), The Princess Bride (1987), Wag the Dog (1997) and Altamira (2016).
As if all that wasn’t enough, he also worked as a music producer on albums for major stars including Tina Turner, Bob Dylan, and Randy Newman.