Guitar King Mark Knopfler Returns With Privateering

This album is Knopfler’s first double album of new music in his entire recording career.

“The older I get, the more I want to write,” Knopfler notes. “I’m enjoying the process more than ever, writing, recording and playing live, I enjoy all of it. I’m almost tripping over songs.”

Recorded at Knopfler’s British Grove Studios in West London, Privateering is a collection of tough tales of real people, living hard lives in difficult times. The record features musicians Knopfler has been working with for years – Guy Fletcher (keyboards), Richard Bennett (guitar), Jim Cox (piano), Glenn Worf (bass), Mike McGoldrick (whistle and flute), John McCusker (fiddle) and the recent addition of Ian Thomas (drums). Special guests include Paul Franklin (pedal steel), Kim Wilson, (harmonica), Tim O’Brien (mandolin), and rising singing star Ruth Moody, who is also a member of the leading roots group The Wailin’ Jennys.

“I chose to make a double album this time just because of the sheer volume of material. I didn’t want to separate songs into genres and I didn’t want to leave too many songs on the shelf. I just wanted it to be a reflection of the fantastic sessions we had. With a great bunch of players, it’s the same as a great group of actors reading a script from the page, the thing can come alive in ways it just never has before. This is the band I have been working towards my whole life.”

Privateering travels from the dreamy Americana of Redbud Tree, filled with trademark silvery Stratocaster licks, to the sea shanty pipes of Haul Away, the swaggering slide electric blues of Gator Blood and the celtic folk yearning of Kingdom Of Gold. It is full of closely drawn characters like the tough northern sheep farmer of Yon Two Crows and boastful gambler of Hot Or What, and evocative situations like the embattled lovers in the rainswept Seattle and the mysterious contemplations of mortality of Dream Of The Drowned Submariner.

Shop for Mark Knopfler | Dire Straits

Mark Knopfler web site

How to enter the contest – read this! You can win a copy. Enter now – just tell us – what is your favorite Mark Knopfler or Dire Straits song? This next part is important: Put your answer in the “Message” field of the online entry form! If you don’t do that, you won’t win. Click on this sentence to enter the contest! Contest ends on September 27, 2013.

OWM Facebook | OWM Twitter | OWM Amazon