Dire Straits

Deptford

Dire Straits formed in Deptford, south-east London, in 1977, at first under the name the Café Racers. Mark Knopfler had given up a job lecturing in English in Essex and moved into a flat with his brother David, then a social worker, and the bassist John Illsley. Knopfler knew the drummer Pick Withers from the pub-rock group Brewers Droop. Their first gig, that summer, was a makeshift festival on the grass behind their council block, with power run by cable from the flat and Squeeze at the top of the bill.

In July 1977 they cut a five-song demo at Pathway Studios in north London, paid for with £500 Illsley had inherited from his grandmother. The tape reached Charlie Gillett, who played Sultans of Swing on his BBC Radio London show Honky Tonk. Phonogram's John Stainze signed them, the agent Ed Bicknell became their manager, and about two months after the broadcast they were on Vertigo.

I was building a democracy, and Mark was making an autocracy.

David Knopfler, to Classic Rock

Sultans

After a British tour supporting Talking Heads in January 1978, they recorded their debut with Muff Winwood at Basing Street Studios in Notting Hill in under a month. The single Sultans of Swing came out in May and Dire Straits in June, with Wild West End among its songs. Radio 1 found the single too wordy and it missed the British chart, breaking first in the Netherlands. Early in 1979 the band played 51 sold-out North American shows in 38 days, the single went to four on the Billboard Hot 100, and a reissue reached eight at home. The album went to two in America and five in Britain. Bob Dylan saw the Los Angeles show and hired Knopfler and Withers for Slow Train Coming.

Communiqué, made in Nassau with Jerry Wexler and Barry Beckett, followed in June 1979 and went to number one in Germany.

Making Movies to Brothers in Arms

Making Movies was recorded at the Power Station in New York in the summer of 1980 with Jimmy Iovine. Bicknell said three of the four members were going through break-ups and he expected the band to split. David Knopfler left in August after arguments with his brother, and his parts were re-recorded. Romeo and Juliet, drawn from Knopfler's breakup with Holly Beth Vincent, reached eight in Britain in 1981. Alan Clark and Hal Lindes joined for the tour that followed.

Love Over Gold (1982), produced by Knopfler and opening with the fourteen-minute Telegraph Road, went to number one in the UK. Withers left after the sessions and Terry Williams took over. Between tours Knopfler scored Local Hero and produced Dylan's Infidels. Brothers in Arms (1985) topped the charts in Britain and America and sold more than 30 million copies. The band played Live Aid at Wembley that July and toured the record for 248 shows, to about 2.5 million people.

The end and after

Knopfler announced the end of the band in September 1988 and turned to the Notting Hillbillies and other projects. Dire Straits came back for On Every Street (1991), another British number one, and a tour of about 300 shows that finished in Zaragoza on 9 October 1992. The band disbanded for good in June 1995, and Knopfler's solo debut Golden Heart followed in 1996.

They have sold more than 120 million records. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted them in 2018, without Knopfler, who has turned down every reunion. Reviewing the 2020 box of their studio albums, Pitchfork's Stephen Thomas Erlewine called them a far artier band than their reputation, and heard the sound of Brothers in Arms in the War on Drugs and Jason Isbell. Illsley told his side of the story in My Life in Dire Straits (2021).