The incredible guitarist Mark Knopfler always wanted to play with: “I’m really sorry we didn’t”
Perhaps one of the greatest British guitar players of his generation, Mark Knopfler is the sort of person who you’d expect to be able to convince any other player to meet up for a collaboration.
Fortunately for him, he pretty much managed to tick off many of the biggest names in music in terms of having worked alongside them, with him having made many contributions to records by other artists and teaming up with some illustrious songwriters after the demise of Dire Straits in the late 1980s.
Everyone from Bob Dylan to Chet Atkins and all the way to Emmylou Harris – you name it, and Knopfler has probably found himself working alongside these giants in some capacity. Despite having been involved in a roots rock outfit that briefly ventured into the world of pop, the raw ability that Knopfler possessed was enough for him to be able to crawl into different areas and have his work alongside figures from folk, blues and jazz still stand out as being masterful displays of his talent.
Knopfler, as always, had a real versatility in his playing style, and his fingerstyle playing techniques have led to him working on music in different capacities, with him venturing away from contemporary music and into the world of cinema, with nine film soundtracks under his belt.
However, having such a storied career doesn’t mean he’s ticked off everyone from his dream collaboration list, and there are a few significant names that he regretfully never managed to find himself working alongside.
His re-recorded version of ‘Going Home’, the theme song from his first soundtrack, Local Hero, was released in 2024 and had a large number of guests on it, ranging from Bruce Springsteen to Slash, but not everyone who appeared on this re-worked version of this classic instrumental track was someone he actually got to work with in person.
One of the contributors to the recording was virtuoso British guitarist Jeff Beck, and while he was making this contribution, he and Knopfler had discussed the possibility of producing something else full-length together. However, this would never come to fruition due to Beck’s sudden passing in 2023, and it was something that Knopfler deeply regretted that he was unable to do.
In an interview with Guitar Player in 2024, he praised Beck’s contributions to the new version of ‘Going Home’, and said that as one of his great guitar heroes, it was a gigantic loss for the world. “Jeff was just something other, y’know?” Knopfler proclaimed. “In fact, we’d just begun some talks, through management, about doing an album together. I’m really sorry we didn’t get to work together.”
It may have been a shame that the world wasn’t blessed with any serious collaborations between Beck and Knopfler, as the results would have surely been a majestic display of both of their powers, but at the same time, Knopfler has been fortunate enough to produce gold with so many other esteemed artists that this one failure shouldn’t be something he has hangups about.
