Music Appreciation: Dire Straits

A sleeper of a jam, highlighting the awesomeness of Mark Knopfler, and his unique style/technique.

Way back, when I was learning guitar, my teacher introduced me to Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits. It is not a difficult song to learn, the chords are pretty easy to master, the rhythm isn’t too esoteric, and — the main reason — the lead breaks are short-ish, and very manageable for a relatively green player.

Hell, I still go to many of those lead breaks when I am improvising, often transposing into different keys, and they just work so many places.

Of course I bought that album, and then a couple more. One of the albums I picked up was Love Over Gold, a banger of an album. Seriously, you should own a copy of it.

Why? Because it has 14:18 of a song called “Telegraph Road” a song that builds, tells a story, and rises to a crescendo about nine and a half minutes that turns into an almost 5 minute guitar solo / outro that will blow your socks off¹. Seriously, whenever this song rolls up on my playlist, I get a smile, and then I settle in for a great listen.

Without further ado, here it is:

1. The closest I can come to this elsewhere is the slow burn jam of Green Grass and High Tides. When that song comes on, you shut the fuck up and listen. I don’t care what you are doing. Telegraph Road is the same for me.

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