Credit: Far Out / Aherrero
Fri 21 August 2026 16:00, UK
Mark Knopfler is a musician who defies all expectations, and let me explain why.
I can’t speak on behalf of the rest of my writing cohort, both here at Far Out and within the wider musical world, but while I’m quite happy to sit here and write about and critique music, by no means does that translate to me having any kind of musical ability. Give me an album, and I’ll give you a fully comprehensive review, sure, but give me a guitar, and all I can provide is a racket.
It’s for that reason that Mark Knopfler defies expectations as he’s a wonderful blend of both critic and creative. There are a few more out there; I’ve got a few friends in journalism who are also in pretty great bands, but none have gone on to have the kind of career that Knopfler has.
He started out as a journalist who used to write a great deal about music, and you can only assume that such a career path at first gave him an ear that has led to the creation of some of the greatest rock songs in recent times. His riffs, his ability to master tone, and his general excellence when it comes to understanding what makes a great song are all something to be marvelled at.
One of the things that stands out the most about the Dire Straits frontman is his commitment to the sound of his guitar. He’s not complacent, merely using effect pedals and amps like a lot of different musicians, but he will switch guitars around, even during shows, in a bid to get the greatest tone out of his six-string, depending on what song he is playing. His obsession with the sound that people can get out of their guitars comes from an early age, as the first axe he ever got was inspired by the tone of Hank B Marvin.
“All I wanted was a red electric guitar, and the only reason I wanted a red electric guitar was because of the sound made by one of my all-time favourite guitar players,” said Knopfler when discussing the playing style of Marvin, “and I still wish I could get a guitar to sound the way he gets it to sound. And he actually recorded this tune, so he knows it.”
That devotion to the great sound that different guitars can make is ever-present in his career to this day. He will switch around the guitar that he wants to use, even when performing, to make sure that songs sound right. This is predominantly a good thing, but it can also pose some great challenges for the guitarist.
Further reading: From The Vault
One of these challenges presented itself in the 1982 song ‘Telegraph Road’, which has two major sections, both of which require different instruments. One is the electric component, for which Knopfler is happy to use a standard electric guitar, and the other is the acoustic portion, and this poses some other difficulties as he insists on playing a six-string from 1937 in order to get everything ringing right, specifically the National Style ‘O’ resonator. He admitted that playing the song is incredibly difficult, as the aged nature of the guitar means it’s hard to nail the playing with it.
“Playing the beginning of ‘Telegraph Road’ always seems hard when you’re going from a spiffy electric to that old war horse,” he revealed, “You’ve just got to brace your hands for an old guitar from the 1930s. So that’s all part of the challenge of that song, when the guitar itself doesn’t want to play pretty.”
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