Their father was an architect expelled from his native Hungary on account of his firebrand socialism. His brother and future Dire Straits bandmate David followed three years later. Mark Knopfler was born into a middle-class household in Glasgow in 1949. Dire Straits became a byword for a certain sort of safe, homogenised music, and Knopfler was turned into a caricature of the middle-aged rocker, with jacket sleeves rolled up and wearing a headband. It made Dire Straits superstars, but it also warped the popular perception of both Knopfler and his band. That record was unstoppable from the moment of its release in May 1985. Theirs was no fleeting moment, either, with three more hit records following before they reached their apogee on their fifth studio album, Brothers In Arms. The white-hot success of their first single, Sultans Of Swing, and self-titled debut album was founded on the elder Knopfler’s fluid, finger-picked guitar style, which sounded as lovely as a bubbling stream.
Emerging from the city’s fertile pub-rock scene at the dawn of the punk era, they were an overnight sensation.
The simple facts are these: Knopfler formed Dire Straits in London in 1977 with his younger brother David on rhythm guitar, John Illsley on bass and Pick Withers on drums.
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