A SOLID-BODY ELECTRIC GUITAR IN THE MANNER OF A TELECASTER CUSTOM

MARK KNOPFLER’S ‘RHYTHM’ GUITAR, USED TO RECORD AND PERFORM ‘WALK OF LIFE’, 1984-2015

Acquired circa April 1984 from Rudy’s Music Stop on New York’s West 48th Street, this distinctive red Schecter Telecaster has become one of Mark Knopfler’s longest serving and most heavily toured instruments, seen on stage for every performance of the ultra-catchy Dire Straits classic ‘Walk Of Life’ since 1985. Featured in The Official Mark Knopfler Guitar Styles: Volume I, the caption notes that ‘this is a great rhythm guitar and often supplier the “picking rhythm” that is Mark’s trademark, exemplified on the track ‘Walk Of Life’.’

Knopfler started acquiring Schecter Strats and Teles to replace his treasured vintage Fenders on the road. 'I didn't want to keep flogging a Strat around the world, getting it smashed to pieces,' Mark told Guitar Player magazine in September 1984. 'Same thing with my beautiful Telecaster that David [Knopfler] used to play rhythm on in the band. It's a double-bound sunburst Custom Tele, about a ’67 or ‘68, and I'm not inclined to have it smashed to bits. The Schecter is beautifully made and very strong.’ This Schecter featured push/pull knobs, which allowed the player to switch between tapped and normal full coil pickups, the latter producing a beefier sound ideal for rhythm riffs. At the time Mark acquired the red Schecter, he was co-producing the 1984 album Knife for the Scottish indie pop group Aztec Camera, founded by singer songwriter Roddy Frame, which was recorded at London’s AIR Studios from February to June 1984. ‘For the Aztec Camera thing, I borrowed a couple of old Martins from Eric Clapton, because they'd been using Ovations, and you just can't get the personality out of them,’ Knopfler told Guitar Player magazine that September. ‘They've also been using my new red Schecter Tele, which is one of the best sounding electric guitars I've ever had.’ In the same interview, Knopfler noted his growing preference for the Schecter: ‘I very rarely use a Fender Strat these days; it's usually a Schecter instead, which is a more powerful guitar.’

By October 1984, the scarlet Schecter was whisked off to AIR Studios, Montserrat, along with Mark’s other most favoured guitars, ready to record Dire Straits’ fifth studio album Brothers In Arms. Lined up with an array of various 6-strings and basses, the Schecter can be seen prominently in a rare studio photograph by engineer and album co-producer Neil Dorfsman, snapped as band co-founder John Illsley laid down a bass track (see image at lot 10). Destroyed by a hurricane in 1989, AIR Montserrat now exists only in the memories of the musicians who recorded there. Interviewed for the 2021 documentary Under the Volcano, keyboardist Guy Fletcher reflected: ‘It would be a lie to say we came away from there without being touched deeply by the place, and the sound of the island does come across on the record.’ According to Illsley, Mark had written all nine album tracks well before the band headed to Montserrat, including the gambolling boogie ‘Walk Of Life’, which celebrated the street buskers of London. ‘I got the idea from a photograph actually,’ Knopfler told Robert Sandall for the band’s CD compilation liner notes in 1998. ‘A friend of John’s took a singer down in a tunnel with his face against a wall to try and make his voice louder, and a boy with a guitar – just a rockabilly boy. I’ve always been attracted to that street-singer figure. It has a sort of Cajun influence.’ The red Schecter Telecaster was selected as the right tool for the job. ‘The red Tele was just asking to be played,’ Knopfler told us. ‘It was a very punchy guitar that. At the time, Shechter guitars were really high quality, they were really good components, and it was punchy, you know. These little pickups, they have wire wind in them, and there's plenty of wind on those pickups. It means there's plenty of power, plenty of sound. So it was great for ‘Walk of Life’, you know, because with just my fingers, it's not exactly percussive. It's not exactly as percussive as a pick. So it really suited the… if I were boogieing, to have some power in the guitar, so the guitar was speaking nice and loud. It was great for that kind of rockabilly stuff.’

Described by John Illsley as ‘just pure upbeat, innocent fun', ‘Walk Of Life’ almost didn’t make it onto the album when it was vetoed by co-producer Neil Dorfsman. ‘Neil didn’t want to have it there,’ Knopfler told Sandall, ‘Maybe he thought it was too lightweight. We all loved it.’ Illsley notes that ‘he was voted down by the band and on it went. I’m pleased that it did because, with its humour, it brought some balance to the album.' First released as a B-side to ‘So Far Away’, the song was released as a single in its own right in October 1985, becoming an even bigger commercial hit than ‘Money For Nothing’ in the UK and sending Brothers In Arms back to number one in the album charts. Two different music videos were produced, both of which featured Mark playing the red Schecter – the first interspersed performance footage from the Dire Straits show at the Sultan’s Pool in Jerusalem on 30 April 1985 with shots of the song’s character Johnny busking in a tube tunnel, while the second, specifically produced for the US market, sprinkled sports bloopers throughout a studio performance by the band.

In advance of the record-breaking release of Brothers In Arms in May 1985, the band set off on a 12-month world tour from April, taking in 248 sold-out stadium and arena shows in 118 cities across 23 countries. The red Schecter Tele was the natural choice for performances of ‘Walk Of Life’ throughout the tour and the song was swiftly established as a fan favourite for live shows. ‘Generally, I end up using the same guitar on the road that I used in the studio,’ Knopfler told International Musician & Recording World magazine in 1986, ‘because in the long run, if I recorded with it, it has the best voice for the song.’ The British and European leg of the tour included a two-week residency at London’s Wembley Arena. Although never officially released, the full show at Wembley on 10 July 1985 was recorded for ITV and the concert footage is widely available online. The Schecter was next seen when Dire Straits headlined The Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute concert at London’s Wembley Stadium on 11 June 1988, performing two warm up gigs a few days prior at Hammersmith Odeon on 8 and 9 June. With Eric Clapton standing in as second guitarist, Knopfler strapped on the red Schecter to play ‘Walk Of Life’ to a worldwide audience of 600 million (see footnote to lot 17).

During this time, Knopfler and his country quartet the Notting Hillbillies recorded their 1990 album Missing... Presumed Having A Good Time in Knopfler’s home studio from mid-1988 to late-1989. Knopfler recalls that the red Schecter was used during the recording sessions, however there are limited records from this time to confirm the specific tracks. The guitar saw heavy use on the Notting Hillbillies’ UK tour from April to May 1990, used for performances of ‘Setting Me Up’, an unreleased rockabilly track from Dire Straits eponymous debut album, ‘Cannibals’, which became the second single from Knopfler’s 1996 debut solo album Golden Heart, and ‘The Next Time I'm in Town’, a Knopfler composition released on his 1990 Chet Atkins collaboration Neck And Neck. When Dire Straits reassembled to tour their final album On Every Street, the Schecter was again enlisted for performances of ‘Walk Of Life’ throughout the epic fifteen-month tour from August 1991 to October 1992. The shows at Les Arenes in Nîmes and Feyenoord Stadium in Rotterdam in May 1992 were recorded and released on the 1993 live album and VHS concert film On The Night.

After the dissolution of Dire Straits in 1993, Knopfler continued to play ‘Walk Of Life’ on his solo tours – the red Schecter Tele was seen on stage during his Golden Heart Tour in 1996, Sailing To Philadelphia Tour in 2001 and Shangri-La Tour in 2005, the latter being the last tour to feature ‘Walk Of Life’ on the setlist. Although the guitar was carried on the Kill To Get Crimson Tour in 2008, it was used for performances of the song ‘Cannibals’ from the 1996 album Golden Heart. The upbeat fan favourite ‘Walk Of Life’ has, however, occasionally popped up on setlists for one-off gigs, including a series of four charity concerts that reunited Dire Straits under the banner ‘Mark Knopfler and Friends’, which included three nights in aid of three charities at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London from 23-25 July 2002, and a concert in aid of the Countryside Education Trust at Beaulieu in Hampshire on 28 July 2002. The guitar was next spotted when Knopfler played at the Edison Music Awards at the Heineken Music Hall, Amsterdam, on 6 March 2003. For the sponsors of his upcoming Privateering Tour, Knopfler opened his set with ‘Walk Of Life’ at a surprise concert for the All-New Range Rover Launch at the Royal Ballet School in Richmond Park, London, on 6 September 2012. Knopfler’s last known performance of ‘Walk Of Life’ with this faithful vermilion workhorse was at a private show at RAI, Amsterdam, on 15 April 2015 during the promotional tour for his 2015 solo studio album Tracker – a fitting thirty years to the month since he first stepped on stage with the guitar on the Brothers In Arms Tour back in April 1985.