Guitars, Mark Knopfler gear, Vintage guitars

Early Dire Straits: Which of the two red Fenders was used in which concert?

Before Knopfler changed to the Schecter Strat in 1980, he played two red Fender Strats with Dire Straits, one with a rosewood finger board (SN 68354) , one with maple (SN 80470).

rosewood Strat
Rosewood Strat (68354)

Maple neck Strat, white pickguard
Maple neck Strat (80470) with white pickguard

maple neck Strat with greenish pickguard
Maple neck Strat (80470) with the greenish pickguard of the rosewood Strat

Have you ever wondered which of these guitars was used on which of the many bootleg concerts that are available from that time?

(yes, in fact he didn’t change beween these Strats from song to song, like he does now, instead he played one guitar for a whole concert while the other served as back-up)

After checking probably hundreds of pictures over many years, I came to the conclusion that apparently he had a favourite guitar for each particular tour, but there are also some tours on which he used both. In detail:

Sommer 77 to late 77:
rosewood (it seems he only had this one then)
e.g. The Demos bootleg

late 77 to summer 78:
maple only (with original white pickguard until early 78, with the greenish pickguard of the rosewood Strat after the recording of the first album in Febr. 78, yeah, he swapped the complete pickguards incl. pick-ups)
e.g. the official CD Live at the BBC
Live at Chester
Revolver TV show …

late 78 (likely from Sept/Oct to the end of the year):
rosewood only (which was painted red from probably then on, his brother David’s Strat was painted black probably at the same time, before both were wood finish)
e.g. Live at Rotterdam
Live at Hamburg

early 79 (Jan/ Febr):
mainly maple (with its original pickguard), but sometimes rosewood as well
e.g. Rockpalast

March 79 to summer 79:
maple with greenish pickguard of rosewood Strat
e.g. Live at Old Waldorf, On the Road to Philadelphia

late 79:
both, but always the greenish pickguard (or possibly maple on the US tour, rosewood at least on the very last gigs in London, see Arena documentary)

rehearsals in 1980 (BBC Arena documentary): both

Ingo

MK guitar style and licks

Unusual double-string bend in Sultans of Swing and Once Upon a Time

Remember the guitar lick In Sultans of Swing following “and Harry doesn’t mind..” ?

In songbooks or tabs you will find something like:

Harry bend a

(play b-string at fret 8, plus g-string at 7th fret, bend g-string one whole note, notes g and d, the d is bent to e)

In fact this is the way Knopfler seems to play it on many old or new live recordings.

I suspect that on the studio versions (both the CD version and the alternative vinyl single version that was released in some countries like Germany or England), he played it differently, like this:

Harry bend b

(b-string at fret 6, g-string at fret 7, then bend up *both strings* one whole note, use the second and third finger of the left hand for bending, notes f and d, bent to g and e)

This is more difficult which might be an explanation why is was only played in the studio this way. The problem is you must be very careful not to mute the b-string accidentally with the finger that bends the g-string.

If you play it this way, you can make it scream more, also you can release the bend and both notes will perfectly match the following Dm chord (listen carefully, this was what gave me the idea to this).

The same bend seems to appear on ‘Once Upon A Time in the west’: oy yeah … (the bend, and release it) …. once upon a time in the west”

See this article for one of my youtube videos where I also demonstrate this bend.

Ingo

Guitar in general, Mark Knopfler gear, Misc, MK guitar style and licks, Understanding music, Vintage guitars

Hello world

So, here is my first post in this new blog. The idea behind this blog is to write about some things I am fascinated in, namely electric guitar and playing it in the style of the unique Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits fame.

I created the Dire Straits Guitar Page, one of the earliest and best-known sites about this topic, in 1996. It was soon quoted and copied almost everywhere. I didn’t find the time to update it regularly, later I planned to create it completely new at mk-guitar.com. Unfortunately I never found the time for this ambitious project.

Maybe a better way to go is with a blog. This way I can write about one single aspect at the time, and let it grow and grow. Also the interaction with other people in a blog seems to be something pretty cool.

Hope to see you all here a lot in the future

Ingo