The guitarist Mark Knopfler called “the greatest pedal steel player” ever
By the time that Mark Knopfler started to become a real force of a name, he’d already had a gift most rock legends struggle to find – time.
When Dire Straits put out their legendary breakthrough hit, ‘Sultans of Swing’ in 1978, Knopfler was a lot older than many breakout acts. At nearly 30, he’d endured a handful of other jobs, though that didn’t stop him from pursuing the one thing he wanted the most. It’s a fairly unique achievement, considering that many of the most iconic rock acts in history started early.
But it’s one that Knopfler viewed as a sort of superpower, especially when it came to maturity and keeping a level head. As he once told Louder, “Sometimes I look into the faces of kids who are 19 or 22 or something, and I’ll try and see them 25 years ahead, try to imagine what’s going to happen to them, but then you can’t really know what will happen. Being the age I was, that means everything. If I’d been 18, I’d have been dead.”
Experiencing a breakthrough later also meant that, by the time Knopfler was in the spotlight, he already had a wealth of influences in his pocket. Growing up, he’d listen to absolute legends like Elvis Presley and developed a particular admiration for guitarists like Chet Atkins and BB King. When it came to guitarists, especially, he was goddamn enamoured by the blues, and some of his earlier musical stints came alongside his favourite players in the scene.
He also fell in love with people like Hank Marvin, discovering him young and begging his father to get him a red Fender Stratocaster just like his. His father, of course, couldn’t spare the money for something like that, but it didn’t stop Knopfler from bringing it up years later, long after Dire Straits’ breakthrough, when he welcomed the esteemed player on stage for a special live performance.
“I still wish I could get a guitar to sound the way he gets it to sound,” Knopfler said at the time, explaining elsewhere that, if he were to give any advice to new guitar players, it would be to try to imitate people they love – like Marvin, or any other guitar player they find themselves gravitating towards. Only then can they move on to their own style, using their approach as the blueprint.
As someone who has crossed paths with many legends, Knopfler knows how to spot such talent. Another that he calls the best of the best is steel guitar legend Paul Franklin, who he once said transcended his own simple labels. “You need to have a player like Paul Franklin to do it,” he told Guitar Player, reflecting on the arrangements on On Every Street. “He’s the greatest pedal steel player in the world, but he’s much more than that.”
He continued, “His father invented the Pedabro, which Paul plays on ‘Iron Hand’. It’s a rectangular box with a resonator and pedals; It has the cubic capacity of a Dobro. He also plays an acoustic lap steel so beautifully on ‘You And Your Friend’. In many ways, it sounds better than anything else. His father is developing a lap box with pedals. I imagine some great things coming from that.”
It was specifically the ways that the guitar set the tone for those songs that Knopfler particularly enjoyed, crediting Franklin with being able to create such an atmosphere with his innovative approach. These also suited the themes of the songs, especially ones like ‘You And Your Friend’, which maintained a level of ambiguity to ensure that the listener could take it any which way they wanted.
