Surprised there’s never been another book about Mark Knopfler?
Don’t be.
His manager Ed Bicknell threatened to sue us and terrified Sidgwick & Jackson.
Commissioning editor Susan Hill said, “Myles, in all my time in publishing I’ve never known a book go back and forward to the lawyers as often as yours.”
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The press release :
Dire Straits is the biggest group in the world, but until now there has never been a book about Mark Knopfler, their songwriter, singer and producer.
This new biography of one of rock’s most gifted, versatile and enigmatic musicians reveals, at last, the man behind the guitar . It tells how a rebellious schoolboy tried newspaper reporting for two years, went to Leeds University to study English, joined a blues group, and then became a teacher in Essex, where he formed a part-time rockabilly band with an extrovert sociology lecturer called Dave Pask. Until now, almost nothing was known about The Cafe Racers, a group which proved to be the turning point in Knopfler’s life.
Soon afterwards, in the punk rock summer of 1977, Mark and his younger brother David started Dire Straits, whose classic single Sultans Of Swing flopped at first in Britain, but the Straits went on to sell an astonishing 65 million albums .
Mark’s domination of the band led to bitter quarrels with his brother, whom he sacked in 1980, and with drummer Pick Withers, another member of the original quartet, who left the group in 1982. This penetrating book probes beyond the public relations facade which all superstars erect, and provides detail on every stage of a unique career. There are revealing and amusing anecdotes from Mark’s school friends, girlfriends, teachers, journalist colleagues and fellow lecturers, plus many insights from informed insiders, including musicians who played with him, and who toured supporting Dire Straits.
This illuminating and provocative portrait, packed with new information about rock’s most reserved superstar, is the book all Dire Straits fans have been waiting for.
The blurb:
Myles Palmer writes about pop and football for The Scotsman.
In the Seventies he wrote features and reviews for The Times, Time Out, Oz, Rolling Stone,Punch and Let It Rock. His previous books are Woody Allen(1980) and New Wave Explosion (1981). He lives in north London with his wife, son, daughter and Amstrad 164O.