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Knopfler’s voice

The New Neo Posted on by

Mark Knopfler, founder of Dire Straits and now solo artist, is known as an astounding guitar player.

And that he most certainly is. His playing is unusual, too, in that he almost never uses a pick. His riffs are especially melodic and quite beautiful as well as virtuosic.

But I also love his voice, which may surprise you if you’re familiar with it. No one would ever call his singing melodic.

Knopfler also illustrates my point about the attraction of uniqueness in voices. Knopfler’s certainly is instantly recognizable—as is his phrasing, and his seeming offhand understated casualness that masks the art behind it. No, he’s not got a beautiful voice, and yet he’s got a fabulous voice that does exactly what he wants it to do.

Sometimes what he wants it to do is to convey emotion. Knopfler is over sixty now, and this video was made not that long ago (perhaps about 10 years), although I’m not sure of the exact date. Enjoy; the really moving stuff starts at around 5:26 and goes right to the end:

The lyrics are here.

The Killers did a cover of this recently—tremendously popular but substantially inferior, IMHO, although the singing is more melodic and conventional:

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Comments

Knopfler’s voice — 42 Comments

  1. This is a gem. Better than discovering a buffalo nickel on a two cent day. Almost, freaking Beethoven.

  2. Curtis: all of Knopfler’s stuff is like that. He’s a genius. The musicality is astounding, phenomenal. I’ve spent many a long and happy hour on YouTube with him, even though he doesn’t know it :-).

  4. Thank you for that song! I love Mark Knopfler’s music and never heard that one.

    He did the soundtrack to one of my all-time favorite movies, Local Hero. His soundtrack for film Cal is also great.

  5. Here’s my special thing about Mark: He takes the dark and makes it light. It’s how and why he developed his talents that make his style. And he truley is very gifted and full of genius, but that comes, not from his brain, but from his heart. Otherwise, he’d be just another player.

  6. Knopfler also illustrates my point about the attraction of uniqueness in voices.[link to Pete Seeger.]

    I also remember Pete Seeger and The Weavers from my childhood. In recent years, in search of renditions of “Starving to Death on a Government Claim,” I took out a Pete Seeger CD. I could take no more than 2-3 songs of Pete Seeger’s scratchy voice- a voice which I did not object to when I was a child.

    To each their own.

  7. Yep. You are right. I really don’t appreciate the Elvis Presley fan club. Or a hundred others. But some of them do come close to absorbing us all. Sorry.

  8. I’ve loved the understated-but-fabulous sheer musicality in Knopfler’s guitar work for decades.

    His technique and phrasing oozes taste and discernment. No unnecesary flash (though he’s quite capable of it). All substance.

    …the first time I heard Dire Straits on the radio (I think it was Sultans of Swing) I remember thinking that Dylan had taken a few singing lessons …and yes, that’s intended as a double compliment.

    To Knopfler, at least LOL.

    I was maybe marginally more impressed with the stylistic similarity in vocal phrasing & lyrical ability in Money for Nothin’) …though by then, it had been many years since I’d paid much attention to Dylan.

    …but Knopfler’s singing & his writing always struck me as having an eerie kind of resemblance to Dylan in Dylan’s Nashville Skyline period, as if Dylan had made a course change somewhere post-Skyline (and all to the good, in my heretical opinion).

    Sultan’s of Swing.

    Lay Lady Lay.

    …I dunno, maybe it’s just me.

  13. There’s no one else quite like Mark Knopfler, I think. I don’t know of a stronger album that Brothers in Arms, there’s not a slouch cut on it. Although we’re discussing guitarists and singers, I will just note that I’m not much of a saxophone fan (or of single reeds in general), but the “Your Latest Trick” has a really arresting sax on it. I don’t know when I’ve heard such a sweet sound from that otherwise-nasal horn.

  18. HAUL AWAY – Mark Knopfler

    Was a windless night
    when you left the ship
    You never were
    a steady bold one
    I gave my hand
    Ah but you did slip

    I’m a living man
    and you’re a cold one
    so haul away
    haul away from here

    My love’s as fair
    as a girl can be
    My wedding ring
    is a heavy gold one
    Now you lay alone
    in the deep dark sea
    I’m a living man
    and you’re a cold one
    so haul away
    haul away for home

    The morning brings
    Lord a fresh young breeze
    to fill our sails
    to end the doldrums
    Our lucky ship
    speeds across the sea
    I’m a living man
    and you’re a cold one
    so haul away
    haul away for home

  19. I’m almost embarrassed to say this but the best versions I’ve ever seen of this song was live at an Indigo Girls concert about 15 years ago (or so) A girl. A guitar. A solo spot light. she absolutely ripped!

    2 cents..

  20. I love-love-love Mark Knopfler’s music, and had the good luck to listen to the Local Hero sound-track album before I ever saw the movie. (I was overseas at the time – things used to have a long lead-time then. He and a couple of other instrumentalists were my go-to guys when I needed something for a production. Joe Satriani was one, and Chuck Mangione was another … guess that dates me, but their music was infinitely varied, and always appealing.
    And Local Hero was one of the best character-study movies ever. There was a story for each character, even the minor ones – the shop lady with the crush on Victor, the old fishermen painting the boat, the little kid in the stroller, the goth chick, the African minister… The one movie that I think came close to ‘every small character their own story’ was Breakfast at Tiffanys.

  25. Don Carlos:
    I remember being at a folk festival years ago, and hearing somebody say something like, “you know, the really good bluegrass bands. The ones that can play a five minute song in 13 seconds.”

  26. carl in atlanta
    Who else could/would sing an ode to Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonalds? And it be GREAT?

    Yes. Guess you have to be a bit of a ham to write and sing a song about the Hamburger King.

  27. Wow. That was one sweet video. And I loved those violinists. The movements of the musicians were like a dance of hands and arms. so perfectly understated and moving.

  28. I bought tickets to a MK concert several years ago. They were some of the spendier tickets I had ever bought, maybe $75 each. As it turned out, my husband went on a business trip to China and got home a couple of days before the show. He was sick when he got home and, with one thing or another, I forgot about the concert until the day after. I was sick about it, because I had been so looking forward to it but also because of the total waste of money.
    Then, a couple of years ago, he did another concert at a local casino. The tickets were reasonably priced, so I thought we’d try again. The concert left me feeling a little deflated and I couldn’t pin down the reason. Then I read some reviews of his concerts online and the general opinion was that MK’s concerts are fairly mechanical, with a repertoire that doesn’t change much. Basically, he doesn’t connect well with his audience.
    So, no more concerts for me, but I still love his music.
    There’s something about a gravelly-voiced man that I can’t resist!

  29. I found a copy of “Theme from Local Hero” that he performs on “The Music Club (BBC)” a few years back that I can’t get enough of. My iTunes play counter is over 350 for this one version. I believe there’s a video on youtube of him teaching that to three young guitarists. He patiently guides them through it and when they begin to get it, he just smiles and say’s “yeah . . .that’s it”

  33. Oh Neo, thanks for the shot of Mark. I played the heck out of my Brothers in Arms CD, but haven’t listened in too long. Queue it up. Been enjoying what you do ever since that podcast you used to do with Siggy et al. Boy how I would love to hear the 4 of you riff on Obama…

  35. davisbr….is right on. That whole first album still is killer. The West End……this was truly the resurgence of music after the terrible disco era. Yes, Donna Summer was terrific….but other than that and John Travolta….what did you have?

    We thought it was Dylan…the first time we heard it too!

  36. I think you would enjoy his brother David Knopfler’s voice and music as well. Sometimes a bit haunting but unique and nice to listen to.

  37. I’m amazed no-one mentioned “Love over Gold”. While I think “Brothers in Arms” is the stronger album (and track) overall, “Telegraph Rd” and the title track are two of my favorite three pieces by him. Too bad Industrial disease gets nicked out by “Walk of Life” and “Money for Nuthin'” but is still awesome.

  38. Knopfler’s one of the finest singers in rock’n’roll. His phrasing is one of the wonders of the world.

    Not everybody understands that, though. In college I knew a girl, a trained singer, who told me it was a shame such a good song was wasted on a “terrible [sic] singer” like Knopfler. She played me a version by the Indigo Girls or something, and they just sledgehammered at it like robots. Just beat it to death. All the tact and feel of a steamroller. I’ve recorded more expressive drum machine tracks.

    I politely told her it was a very nice recording. Some people have nerve endings six inches wide. Whitney Houston is too subtle for them, never mind Mark Knopfler.

  39. Geez, I’m so behind the curve here. This was posted back on Saturday, and I’m just now getting to it. 🙁

    Anyway, Knopfler: His guitar playing is excellent in that it’s understated yet not minimalistic. That’s something that’s missing in a lot of popular – and dare I say it? Pop – music nowadays. Sure, I can get into someone who lets their virtuoso hang out on the High setting, but after the thousandth time, it just gets monotonous. Folks just need a changeup now and then. Which is why I can listen to DiMeola or De Lucia’s mad virtuouso one minute and turn around and put in some David Gilmour (sure, Gilmour’s not exactly a “minimalist”… but he’s no shredder either. And anyway, anyone short of a blues or jazz version of Eddie Van Halen would be minimalist compared to either DiMeola or De Lucia!). Knopfler’s guitar playing is lyrical in that respect.

    And this goes on to the notion of ALL OUT MUSIC (caps intended) compared to understated play. It’s fun to switch back and forth, and for the life of me I **wish** more musicians would do the same. Carlos Santana (ignoring his distasteful worship of Che… yeah, that’s a huge fault, I admit) is someone who could do this; I listen to his live version of Europa on Moonflower, and I see him do both extremely well: He uses the understated play in the beginning to set up the mood, but climaxes in a great rush to elevate the song to a glorious height. And then comes back down gently to play it out. Wonderful, **wonderful** music. It goes beyond something I can listen to into something I can experience.

  40. But anyway, to continue my thought: That sort of thing (slowing down. Understating. Changing pace) is so lacking nowadays. Once, just *once*, I WISH someone would take Christina Aguilera’s dog hostage or something to force her to try and moderate her style by singing understated. Even for just a brief period. I swear, if someone could drag her away from all that pop atmosphere and force her into some old style Koko Taylor or Etta James type music, she’d hit it out of the park. Way out. And yes, *THAT* stuff isn’t really understated; it’s only so in comparison to her Lets-Hit-The-Edge-Of-The-Atmosphere style she uses today. But it’s a chageup and it takes her away from being a space shuttle booster rocket that’s all until it falls back to earth. I honestly think she’s got the talent to do it, and I honestly think she’d sound great doing it. I just wish she’d try.

    Sometimes, you just gotta hit the brakes and slow down.

    It’s effective. You see it in opera, and operatic/classical style music (sorry, I’m no serious student of music, so I do a lumping together of a lot of stuff that would make a serious musician blanche). And it works. Listen to Orff’s Carmina Burana as an example (yes, I know that’s not opera! Bear with me, please). You don’t get much more mad, loud, and imperative sound than is present in the climax of O Fortuna, but you also get some movements within that songe that are so quiet and understated that you have to strain to listen. You also get slower, more introspective pieces like In Trutina. Carmina Burana is very, very evocative and moving in it’s changeup.

    It’s also effective in a genre you wouldn’t guess is anything less than 100% All Out: Metal. Or in my example, “Prog” (for progressive) metal. Listen to the changeups in Queensryche’s dark rock opera “Operation Mindcrime”. You get the intense shredding and higher-than-high note hits in songs like Anarchy-X and Revolution Calling followed by the slow, stately tracks like “Suite Sister Mary” or the calm-before-the-storm piece “My Empty Room”. It really works in evoking the various states of emotion within the context of the album (keep in mind, though that the context is a first person account of paranoid delusion, so it’s not expansive. But still, it’s not one note either, and that’s my point).

    And getting back to Knopfler: He’s a great listen because he is a changeup from so much else of what’s out there. He’s lyrical, he’s evocative, and he’s smooth. It’s something that other, bigger, more popular performers should take note of. Don’t get me wrong; sometimes you want to see the flash and spectacle too. PBS (of all stations!) once aired part of a Beyonce concert, and honestly, it looked fun! But at the same time, you have to remember that you can electrify with simplicity. Like Leonard Nimoy once observed:

    “Back in the mid-1950s, my wife and I had gone to see Belafonte sing at Los Angeles’s Greek Theatre.

    For the first forty-five minutes of his performance, he scarcely moved a muscle – only stood perfectly still in front of amicrophone, his shoulders hunched, his hands resting on his thighs. And then, after all that time, he suddenly made a move. He merely lifted his right arm slowly until it hovered parallel to the floor – but the impact of that one subtle motion on the audience was tremendous. Had he been dancing around the stage, the gesture would have been meaningless; as it was, it dazzled like a lightning bolt.”

    Music needs both. That’s why Knopfler is part of my listening playlist. It’s also why he’s not the *only* performer on it.

  41. A few years after Knopfler became well-known with Dire Straits the McGarrigle sisters released what may be their only song to ever get top-40 airplay, Love Over and Over. I was struck at the time by the interesting guitar bits in the background and only recently learned it was none other than he. It’s pretty obvious once you know who it is:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_mqt_q-7yg

  42. RodW: thanks! I just listened to it and yes, it has that distinctive Knopfler something-or-other.

    I’m just in awe of his guitar playing.

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