Dire Straits - Biography

Dire Straits was a British Rock-Group, founded in 1977 through Mark Knopfler (vocals, lead-guitar), his brother David Knopfler (background-vocals and rhythm-guitar), John Illsley (background-vocals and bass-guitar) and David "Pick" Withers (drums).
That original-lineup recorded a demo-tape and they sent it to London-DJ Charlie Gillett, who was so suprised and amazed by that type of music, Dire Straits played in those days. He played the few Demo-Tracks in his well known Honky-Tonk-Radioshow again and again. So some listeners got in contact with Sultans of Swing, Down To The Waterline and some other early tracks.
Phonogram London won the battle of record-labels and that company offered Dire Straits the important recording-contract The upcoming releases by Dire Straits were on Vertigo-Records.
In some European countries, incl. Holland, Italy and Germany the first album runned through the roof. It was very successful, also the single-release of Sultans of swing.
Ed Bicknell, the former manager of Dire Straits pushed the band into another important music-market, the USA. With Warner Brothers Records, they found another big partner in music-business, and the Dire Straits records sold very well in the United States. They toured the USA very early in 1979 and they played some gigs with the band The Talking Heads.
Remarkable is the special Dire Straits-Sound in those days of late Seventies, where Punk, New-Wave and Disco-tracks dominated the chart-lists. Knopflers sound and guitar-technique was so unique in those days. That was a formula of success for the band.
Later, some changes made the round in the lineup. David Knopfler, Marks younger brother left the band after the two albums First and Communiqué . In 1980 Dire Straits recorded Making Movies with keyboard-appearance. Knopfler borrowed from The Boss the famous pianoplayer Roy Bittan for some tracks. On stage perfomed a guy named Tommy Mandel. Then Alan Clark put his feet into the Dire Straits-cosmos. David "Pick" Withers left the band in 1982 after the Love over gold-Tour and Album. He was replaced by welsh drummer Terry Williams. He was well known with Dave Edmund´s Rockpile-Band and with the welsh Progressive-Rock-band MAN. With Terry on drums, the Straits sound got more rock-drive. Pick had a more jazzy drum-style in his sound. Harold "Hal" Lindes was the new man on second guitar.
1985 was a landmark-year for the band. Between 1984 and early 1985 Knopfler and Co. recorded nine tracks only for a new album. It was the year of Brothers in arms. Fully digital recorded and released with some longer versions as a CD. It was the first CD in the world, that hit the one-million mark in sales. Brothers in arms was sold more than 30 million times til today. Then the big Brothers in arms-worldtour started in Split in Yugoslavia and ended more than one year later in Sydney, Australia. Some new musicians joined the Dire Straits-Train. Jack Sonni on second-guitar, Chris White on Saxophone and Guy Fletcher on Keyboards.

Yes, one can say that Dire Straits was a very successful and popular band in the late Seventies, in the Eighties and in the Nineties.
In 1996 Mark Knopfler started a "Solo-carreer" with new musicians and with totally new recorded material. Some of the newer tunes have a Scottish or otherwise tratidional flavour. They are jazzy, bluesy, little bit rock-n-roll and folk.
That new material is accepted by many of the Dire Straits fans, and Mark did some successful tour around the globe.
The last worldtour was in the year 2019. Now Mark is 71 years old, äh sorry, 71 years young and his health is very well. Keep on writing new cool songs, Mark.

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