Hi, new member here. I've been listening to Privateering a lot over the last couple of days, reminding myself what a fantastic songwriter Mark Knopfler is, and stumbled across this site while looking for reviews, so I thought I'd introduce myself. I've been a Knopfler fan since my teens, when my brother made me listen to Love Over Gold and watch Alchemy on video. Caught up with the rest in time for Brothers in Arms and have been following him ever since, even through the 90s when it was social death to admit it (Brothers in Arms being overexposed and On Every Street being, well, not terribly good, were the main causes of that). Mark's the main reason I learned to play guitar. I don't even try to play like him, I could never hope to match his melodic instinct, I mainly use it to accompany my singing, although I do usually play with my fingers - but that's mostly because every pick I buy evaporates within a couple of days.
Anyway, something that occurred to me while listening to "Radio City Serenade", a song that that draws on melodic traditions that pre-date rock and roll but aren't folk, country or blues, which is a thread in Mark's songwriting - songs like "Monteleone" and "One More Matinee" - and it struck me that this goes back to the much-maligned "Les Boys" on Making Movies (in the same way that "I Dug Up a Diamond" is a descendant of "Six Blade Knife"). There's something to tell people who complain that his solo albums don't sound enough like Dire Straits!
Another couple of observations from the album. Here's . Listen about 5:34 - he throws in a couple of completely gratuitous blues notes! In a folk song! Lovely. And as for , it's a shame Howlin' Wolf isn't still alive, he'd have owned that song. Mark's voice just isn't big or evil enough.
