“It’s important”: The genre Mark Knopfler believes everyone should listen to
While classic rock was certainly on a downward trajectory in the 1980s, with technological advancements seeing new genres being ushered in as the dominant cultural forces in music, you can’t fault Dire Straits for having rallied in the face of this decline and producing some of the decade’s most important rock records.
Perhaps what it was that made them so popular was their refusal to necessarily move with the times, with their sound being so unapologetically indebted to what had come before them. Rock music had shifted in so many different directions, with some fledgling acts being attracted to the punk and new wave explosions, while others wanted to move towards something more modern and sophisticated, bowing to all of the latest trends.
Every other group was being sucked into the contemporary world while Dire Straits revelled in the fact that they were far more aligned with the past, and this is what helped them rapidly accrue an audience. They didn’t need to run with the times because there were enough acts already doing that, and instead, they stuck to what they knew best and did it with aplomb.
It was the roots of rock in full force, and the world was ready for that, given how obsessed everyone else had become either with the electronic age or the complete dismissal of all music from previous generations, depending on where your own personal allegiances lay.
But Dire Straits were evidently not just rock, and one of their most celebrated songs has far more going on than it draws inspiration from, all of which was reflected in how organic it ended up sounding.
With their earliest single, ‘Sultans of Swing’, Dire Straits managed to tap into something that was classicist in its approach to rock music in many respects, but bassist John Illsley claimed that early recordings of the song sounded far removed from its final form, which frontman and guitarist Mark Knopfler would later confirm in a 1985 interview with Rolling Stone.
“It had a completely different musical thing to it,” he claimed, reiterating Illsley’s suggestion that there was an air of a country influence on the song. “I wrote it on an acoustic guitar. Then when I started playing it on the Strat, it came out different, just because I was using a different guitar.”
However, he then went on to explain just how important other genres had always been to Dire Straits and their approach, and it would appear that they’re far from simply being the down-the-line rock act that everyone perceived them as.
“I actually saw a jazz band one night in south London,” Knopfler added. “It reminded me that whenever a band plays something like ‘Creole Love Call’, you realise how beautiful that music is. It’s important to listen, to know about that music. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Ellington or a traditional jazz band or Roland Kirk who plays it. It’s fine music.”
While it may not be for everyone, it’s clear that Knopfler feels a certain way about the preservation of certain styles and genres, and that even though the temptation of technology is hard for musicians to resist, given how it can often simplify the creative process, there’s something so beautiful about the human emotion, the complexity, and the achievements in composition that go into jazz music. Dire Straits recognised that, and the fact that they kept it firmly in mind when writing some of their best material only goes to show how being connected to the past is just as important as looking forwards.
