|
|
|
|
Mark Freuder Knopfler, OBE (born August 12, 1949, Glasgow, Scotland) is a
British guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He is best-known as the lead
guitarist and vocalist for the band Dire Straits, but has also made albums
as a solo performer and played in other bands (such as the Notting
Hillbillies). He has also performed on work by other artists, such as Bob
Dylan, Eric Clapton and Chet Atkins, and produced albums for artists such as
Tina Turner, Randy Newman, and (again) Bob Dylan. In addition, he has scored
the music to several films, including Local Hero, The Princess Bride, Cal,
Last Exit to Brooklyn and Wag the Dog.
***
***
Mark Knopfler is the son of a Jewish architect whose communist sympathies
forced him to flee the fascist regime in his native Hungary. When Mark was
about nine years old, the family moved to Newcastle, in the north of England.
At fifteen, he got his first guitar. Not long after, he cut his first record
in a London studio, an unreleased demo of an original song, "Summer's Coming
My Way". Knopfler worked as a journalist for the Yorkshire Evening Post, and
then as a lecturer at Loughton College, before he became a full-time
musician in the late 1970s. He is noted for being left-handed, but playing
right-handed, and for fingerpicking instead of strumming or using a plectrum;
fingerpicking is usually associated with the acoustic guitar, but Knopfler
usually (though not always) plays an electric guitar, particularly the
Fender Stratocaster (sometimes uses also Gibson Les Paul). Although at
present he has a signature guitar from Fender, he is also known for his
signature Pensa-Suhr MK series (now known as Pensa).
Knopfler and his associated bands have sold over 100 million albums, and
performed live to audiences totalling many millions. He has twin sons (Benji
and Joseph, born 1987), and two daughters Isabella (1998) and Katya (2003).
Mark holds a degree in English from Leeds University and has been awarded an
honorary music degree from Newcastle University. In (2006), Knopfler is at
work on a new album with country music singer Emmylou Harris, according to a
sticker on the album The Best of Mark Knopfler & Dire Straits: Private
Investigations released in 2005. |
|
