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Mark Knopfler Announces Ninth Solo Studio Album ‘Down The Road Wherever’
The follow-up to 2015’s ‘Tracker’ features many of the musicians Knopfler has worked with in recent years, and a guest appearance by Imelda May.
Published on September 19, 2018
By Paul Sexton
Mark Knopfler will return with his ninth solo studio album, Down The Road Wherever, on 16 November. The follow-up to 2015’s Tracker, it will be released on his own British Grove label via Universal/Virgin EMI and features 14 new Knopfler compositions recorded at his west London studio, also called British Grove. Contributors to the album include Irish star Imelda May.
“’Down The Road Wherever’ is a line from ‘
One Song At A Time,’” says Knopfler, referring to the album title and one of its tracks. “I remember my pal Chet Atkins once saying that he picked his way out of poverty one song at a time, and it just stuck in my mind. You get to an age where you’ve written quite a few songs.
“But Down The Road Wherever seems to be appropriate for me, just because it’s what I’ve always done. I’ve always tried to make a record and also to keep my own geography happening in the songs.”
With Knopfler’s ever-present eye for compelling narratives and striking characters, the new songs cover such subjects as his early days in the south-east London area of Deptford, when Dire Straits were a fledgling band; a man out of time reflecting on his circumstances in his local “greasy spoon” café; and a stray Liverpool Football Club fan who finds himself in Newcastle (where Mark himself grew up) on ‘
Just A Boy Away From Home.’ That’s the only track on which Knopfler is not the sole writer, as it features the melody of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone,’ also well-known as Liverpool FC’s own anthem.
The team that Knopfler assembled around him for the recording sessions includes many of the musicians who have been with him in the studio and on the road for years. Among them are keyboardist Guy Fletcher, who has worked with him since Dire Straits days and co-produced Down The Road Wherever with Mark; Jim Cox, also on keyboards; Nigel Hitchcock on saxophone, Tom Walsh on trumpet, John McCusker (fiddle), Mike McGoldrick (whistle and flute), Glenn Worf (bass), drummer Ian ‘Ianto’ Thomas and Danny Cummings on percussion.
There are also appearances by Richard Bennett and the widely-travelled Robbie McIntosh on guitar and Trevor Mires on trombone. Along with May, the album has backing vocals by Lance Ellington, Kris Drever, Beverley Skeete and Katie Kissoon.
Down The Road Wherever will be available on digital DL, CD, double vinyl (with one bonus track), deluxe CD with two bonus tracks, and as a lavish box set including the album on both vinyl and deluxe CD. The box will also contain a 12” vinyl EP with four bonus tracks, a 12” print of the artwork and a 12” guitar tablature of a selected song.
“I think the business of making a record, from having written a song and then bringing it to musicians, it can be quite a bendy route,” says Knopfler. “It’s not just motorways all the way…and you can end up in the occasional cul-de-sac, then you have to do a 16-point turn to try to get your truck back out on the main road, as unobtrusively as you can. That’s part of the fun of it.”
And I’ll be out of this place
And down the road wherever
There but for the grace, etcetera
I’ll see you later somewhere down the line
I’ll be picking my way out of here
One song at a time
Mark Knopfler
Down The Road WhereverAsk Mark Knopfler to explain the title of his ninth solo studio album and he will tell you that Down The Road Wherever is a line from one of the tracks: “One Song At A Time.” He'll give the credit for that title phrase to a sadly departed friend with whom he shared a lifelong love of songwriting and guitar playing, and their endless potential to change lives.
“I remember my pal Chet Atkins once saying that he picked his way out of poverty one song at a time, and it just stuck in my mind,” says Mark. “You get to an age where it is a few songs. But Down The Road Wherever seems to be appropriate, just because it’s what I’ve always done. I’ve always tried to keep my own geography happening in the songs, that applies there as well.” In “
One Song At A Time” that autobiographical geography
pinpoints Deptford, England, where the up-and-coming Dire Straits began to make their way, one song at a time.
The unassuming spirit of the itinerant songsmith is still Knopfler’s pilot light, inextinguishable through more than 40 years at the absolute pinnacle of his profession. Down The Road Wherever is the latest, elegant evidence of that steadfast hunger, a bold and often surprising songbook of 14 selections (more on the deluxe editions) boiled down from twice as many that went into the workshop.
Mark’s apparently limitless creativity was further extended by simultaneous compositions for the upcoming Local Hero musical. That’s a subject close to his heart too, as the 1983 movie version became his first of several soundtrack projects and included the talismanic instrumental theme “Going Home,” to which his beloved Newcastle United still take the field.
Just as with its 2015 predecessor Tracker and others before it, Down The Road Wherever was created at Knopfler’s own West London recording space, British Grove Studios. Instrumental compadres include longtime collaborators such as co-producer and keyboardist Guy Fletcher, bass player Glenn Worf, pianist Jim Cox, guitarist Richard Bennett, drummer Ian “Ianto” Thomas and percussionist Danny Cummings. Mark’s ten-year association with top folk players John McCusker (fiddle) and Michael McGoldrick (whistles) continues, while additions to the group include saxophonist Nigel Hitchcock and Tom Walsh on trumpet.
As ever, Knopfler found that the pleasure of birthing a new song is complemented by the process of what to do with it. “I enjoy the whole thing, of being inspired to write something, of working on it at home, writing it, and then taking it to a studio to try to make it work as a record,” he says. “I’ve got to make a decision as well: shall I just bring it here (to British Grove) and work on it on my own, or should I take it straight to the band? Because it’ll be a different thing if you do that. So you’re trying to decide which school to send your child to.”
Female backing vocals also abound on several tracks, along with a notable name on the door for “
Back On The Dancefloor” in the form of Irish force of nature
Imelda May. “It was great to have Imelda on that song, I think she’s fantastic,” says Knopfler. “She really did add a lot of color to it. She’s so creative, and that was fun. It’s a kind of a mystery song to me but I like it, that’s one of my favorites.”
“Female backing vocals are something that was going to happen. [I’ve] probably been meaning to feature that for a long time. And I’ve been enjoying having the brass element in quite a lot of the songs. When I go out on tour, I’m thinking I’ll have the elements I’ve always had but add brass to the line-up. It’ll just be more people on the bus.”
Longtime fans of this giant among singer-songwriter guitar heroes will note some palpable changes of mood on Down The Road Wherever, which stays true to the folk and roots-inflected ambience of his solo oeuvre but introduces new elements of jazz, funk and even a hint of the rockier leanings of earlier days.
“It will be different because whether you want to or not, you develop,” says Knopfler. “That’s just what happens. Sometimes the songs will tell you after you’re done, what it is you’ve been doing wrong, or where you’ve been going. So that’s a never-ending source of amusement. You can even find out from doing them what they’re about, or what you’ve been thinking about, perhaps.”
Other sonic surprises include the sparse and
deeply romantic ballad “
When You Leave” and the playful “
Heavy Up,” inspired by a fellow songwriter who told Mark that
his response to being told to “lighten up” was “I’ll lighten up for you if you’ll heavy up for me.” There is further inspiration from close to home in “
Just A Boy Away From Home,” which rose from a
memory back home in Newcastle, when his father was in hospital after a heart attack.
“He was in Newcastle General, which as anyone from the Northeast of England will know is very close to the football ground. He was lying awake in the middle of the night feeling a bit sorry for himself, and
he heard a lad walking on the deserted street outside singing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone.’ Of course, he was a Liverpool fan and he’d been to the match—or who knows, he might have missed it somehow. But there he was in Newcastle singing his song. My dad found it inspiring, the spirit of it.” The track includes a full, stirring reprise of the famous melody. “It just felt good to play it on the slide,” says Mark. “I thought, ‘I’ve started, so I may as well finish.’ And it’s fun for the band to play.”
The completion of another momentous entry in Knopfler’s catalogue is the prelude to another joy of his life: the chance to perform some of it along with his endless supply of classic songs on the road. “You do find yourself thinking about being on a stage and playing a song,” he says. “I’ll be thinking about everybody, about having Mike McGoldrick and John McCusker, the folk musicians, as part of some songs, and Nigel and Tom as part of the brass thing on others. I’m looking forward to it.”
Down The Road Wherever concludes with “
Matchstick Man,” another personal memory that poignantly captures Mark Knopfler as he was, and as he remains. “That’s me,” he confesses readily, “
a young idiot with a guitar and a bag, climbing up into trucks and hitchhiking. I was trying to get back from a Christmas Eve gig in Penzance early on Christmas Day. I thought I’d hitch home. I don’t think I really knew it was 500 miles from there.”
“I got a lift up the old A1 and he let me off at a high crossroads in the Midlands. The sun was shining, there was snow everywhere and I could see for miles. There was nothing moving anywhere. I’m standing there with my guitar case and bag and this realization of what I’d chosen to do with my life. To me, it was exactly what I wanted to do. It’s just a snapshot of me then. From the air I would have been a tiny matchstick figure in this vastness of snow with his dream of being a musician.”
“You need some energy to make these things happen,” he concludes. “You’re not going to last if you haven’t got enough to get you through all the tougher times. I feel the same way I always felt. When I come in here and I see a couple of guitars in the corner, I get the same buzz that I had when I was a kid, and you’ve got to have that. It’s almost a childish attitude that keeps you fired up about turning up.”
STANDARD EDITION 1.Trapper Man 6.00Ian Thomas, Drums
Beverley Skeete, Background Vocalist
Nigel Hitchcock, Tenor Saxophone
Glenn Worf, Bass Guitar
Mark Knopfler, Guitar, Vocals
Jim Cox, Piano
Katie Kissoon, Background Vocalist
Tom Walsh, Trumpet
Trevor Mires, Trombone
Danny Cummings, Percussion
Guy Fletcher, Synthesizer
2.Back On The Dance Floor 5.30Ian Thomas, Drums
Imelda May, Background Vocalist
Glenn Worf, Bass Guitar
Mark Knopfler, Guitar, Vocals
Jim Cox, Organ
Danny Cummings, Percussion, Background Vocalist
Guy Fletcher, Synthesizer
3.Nobody’s Child 4.16Ian Thomas, Drums
Glenn Worf, Bass Guitar
Mark Knopfler, Guitar, Vocals
Jim Cox, Organ
Danny Cummings, Percussion
Guy Fletcher, Synthesizer
4.Just A Boy Away From Home (featuring "You'll Never Walk Alone", by Rodgers & Hammerstein) 5.12Ian Thomas, Drums
Robbie McIntosh, Guitar
Nigel Hitchcock, Tenor Saxophone
Glenn Worf, Bass Guitar
Mark Knopfler, Guitar, Vocals
Jim Cox, Organ
Tom Walsh, Trumpet
Danny Cummings, Percussion
5.When You Leave 4.12Richard Bennett, Guitar
Ian Thomas, Drums
Glenn Worf, Bass Guitar
Mark Knopfler, Guitar, Vocals
Jim Cox, Piano
Danny Cummings, Percussion
Guy Fletcher, Vibraphone, Recording Engineer
6.Good On You Son 5.37Ian Thomas, Drums
Lance Ellington, Background Vocalist
Beverley Skeete, Background Vocalist
Glenn Worf, Bass Guitar
Mark Knopfler, Guitar, Vocals
Jim Cox, Organ, Piano
Katie Kissoon, Background Vocalist
Tom Walsh, Trumpet?Nigel Hitchcock: Tenor Sax
Danny Cummings, Percussion
Guy Fletcher, Synthesizer, Background Vocalist
7.My Bacon Roll 5.35Richard Bennett, Guitar
Ian Thomas, Drums
Glenn Worf, Bass Guitar
Mark Knopfler, Guitar, Vocals
Jim Cox, Organ, Piano
Danny Cummings, Percussion
Guy Fletcher, Synthesizer
Kris Drever, Background Vocalist
8.Nobody Does That 5.15Richard Bennett, Guitar
Ian Thomas, Drums
Lance Ellington, Background Vocalist
Beverley Skeete, Background Vocalist
Nigel Hitchcock, Tenor Saxophone
Glenn Worf, Bass Guitar
Mark Knopfler, Guitar, Vocals
Jim Cox, Synthesizer
Katie Kissoon, Background Vocalist
Tom Walsh, Trumpet
Danny Cummings, Percussion
Guy Fletcher, Keyboards, Recording Engineer
9.Drovers’ Road (apparently not in the US version or not in the standard version according MK.com) 5.05
Richard Bennett, Guitar
Ian Thomas, Drums
Glenn Worf, Bass Guitar
Mark Knopfler, Guitar, Vocals
Jim Cox, Piano
Danny Cummings, Percussion
Guy Fletcher, Synthesizer
John McCusker, Fiddle
Kris Drever, Background Vocalist
Mike McGoldrick, Whistle
10.One Song At A Time 6.17Richard Bennett, Guitar
Ian Thomas, Drums
Glenn Worf, Bass Guitar
Mark Knopfler, Guitar, Vocals
Jim Cox, Organ
Danny Cummings, Percussion, Background Vocalist
Guy Fletcher, Synthesizer
John McCusker, Fiddle
Mike McGoldrick, Whistle
11.Floating Away 5.02Richard Bennett, Guitar
Ian Thomas, Drums
Imelda May, Background Vocalist
Glenn Worf, Bass Guitar
Mark Knopfler, Guitar, Vocals
Jim Cox, Piano
Danny Cummings, Percussion
Guy Fletcher, Synthesizer
12.Slow Learner 4.34Ian Thomas, Drums
Glenn Worf, Bass Guitar
Mark Knopfler, Guitar, Vocals
Jim Cox, Piano
Tom Walsh, Trumpet
Danny Cummings, Percussion
13.Heavy Up 6.00Richard Bennett, Guitar
Ian Thomas, Drums
Lance Ellington, Background Vocalist
Beverley Skeete, Background Vocalist
Nigel Hitchcock, Tenor Saxophone
Glenn Worf, Bass Guitar
Mark Knopfler, Guitar, Vocals
Jim Cox, Piano, Synthesizer
Katie Kissoon, Background Vocalist
Tom Walsh, Trumpet
Trevor Mires, Trombone
Danny Cummings, Percussion
Guy Fletcher, Organ, Recording Engineer
14.Matchstick Man 2.52
Mark Knopfler, Guitar, Vocals
BONUS TRACKS IN DELUXE CD15.Every Heart In The Room 4.30Ian Thomas, Drums
Robbie McIntosh, Guitar
Glenn Worf, Bass Guitar
Mark Knopfler, Guitar, Vocals
Jim Cox, Piano
Danny Cummings, Percussion
Guy Fletcher, Synthesizer
Kris Drever, Background Vocalist
16.Rear View Mirror 2.29Ian Thomas, Drums
Nigel Hitchcock, Tenor Saxophone
Glenn Worf, Bass Guitar
Mark Knopfler, Guitar, Vocals
Jim Cox, Organ
Tom Walsh, Trumpet
Danny Cummings, Percussion
BONUS TRACKS IN THE BOX (VINYL)17.Don’t Suck Me In18.Sky And Water19.Pale ImitationBONUS TRACKS (unknown where it would be...)
20.Back In The Day
21.MOVING UP (T-925.653.523-6)Mark Knopfler gleams with pride as he shows me around British Grove Studios in a quiet corner of Chiswick in London. In the control room, alongside the main state-of-the-art desk, there are three vintage consoles, one of which was used to record Band on the Run by Wings, lovingly maintained so they’re still in operation. Across the glass in the live room, a studio hand is tidying away the set-up for a film score recorded here, so there’s still a digital counter that keeps time to an nth of a second, rows of comfy-looking headphones for the orchestra, and leads, wires and pre-war microphones restored to great nick, because, according to Knopfler, no microphone records strings better.
“The padding can be flipped around too,” he says, pointing up to sound pads that line the walls. “You’d want the soft side if you were recording Frank Sinatra, or you can turn them around and have a hard sound if you want to rock out.”
If anyone knows how to make a versatile recording space, it’s Knopfler: a self-taught guitarist who went from his childhood home in Newcastle to front Dire Straits, one of the most successful rock bands in British history, before entering a prolific and varied career involve critically acclaimed solo albums, collaboration albums, film scores, writing songs like Tina Turner’s Private Dancer, and a spot of producing if the likes of Bob Dylan or Van Morrison need his magic touch.
Even now, his appetite to learn is apparent. As we move into the second studio, all quality wood and soft lighting, he explains how he’s looking for a jazz guitar tutor to expand his breadth, as if he wasn’t regularly voted one of the greatest guitarists of all time. (“I play like a plumber,” he remarks.)
Speaking with such humility, in a comfortable grey jumper and hair silvery and shorn, you’d never guess he was the same person as the sweatbanded rock star showboating in the Money for Nothing video (the first song played on MTV Europe), nor the same person who this year’s Sunday Times Rich List valued at €80 million.
Not that money matters. Truly, it takes an unblemished soul to refuse continual requests to reform Dire Straits for lucrative sums since their split in 1995.
Formed 18 years previously as an evolution of his former pub band the Café Racers, the group immediately grew interest; the enduring Sultans of Swing was their first release, and they followed it with surprise (Romeo and Juliet) after surprise (Private Investigations, Britain’s most unlikely-sounding number two single).
Then Brothers in Arms happened. With tracks like Money for Nothing and Walk of Life offering no respite from their ubiquity, it eventually racked up sales of 30 million – the same as Nirvana’s Nevermind, to put it in context. If anyone in Europe or US hadn’t heard of them, that changed with Brothers in Arms.
But just one album later, and Mark Knopfler stepped away from the behemoth, preferring to concentrate on his more creatively satisfying solo career.
“I’ve been offered enormous amounts of money to do all that Dire Straits stuff,” he says. “I don’t know how much – I’m not interested in that and I never have been. I’m quite proud of the fact that I’ve never done anything for money, and I’m not starting now. The exception would be if there was an absolute crisis with the studio, if I couldn’t run the ship the way I like to. Otherwise, it’s just a load of old exhaust to me.”
If his Dire Straits heyday is behind him, more exciting is his new release, Down the Road Wherever, recorded in these very studios. His ninth solo album and one which showcases his rootsy rock delivered with the Knopfler coolness, it features the upbeat lead track Good on You Son, plus the intriguingly titled My Bacon Roll.
It turns out the roll represents the disenfranchised part of society that longs for the past.
“The song is basically a Brexit Man in a café,” he explains. “To me, he is a man out of his time. He says: ‘I used to love a bit of folding, just for getting by, a wad of cash, now that’s out of date, and so am I’. Because now people would buy coffee with their card. That’s the modern way. Who carries around a wad of cash anymore? But it’s like being nostalgic for a time before food containers. It’s not something you can stop.”
Elsewhere, Back on the Dance Floor features Imelda May, the latest in a long line of Irish musicians with whom Knopfler has collaborated. He helped Phil Lynott out on his solo albums, and included an Irish contingent of Paul Brady, Dónal Lunny, Máirtín O’Connor, Liam O’Flynn and Seán Keane in his own solo album Golden Heart (Brady and O’Flynn previously played on Mark’s soundtrack for the Irish drama Cal).
“My old friend Paul Brady helped put an outfit of heavyweight, great musicians on Golden Heart,” he says. “That helped me make friends with so many great players. It was a tremendous quartet that I took around with the band. If you love Celtic music, then you feel part-Irish as a musician. Musicians kind of understand it.
“Ireland is full of memories for me. Obviously playing there with Dire Straits was amazing. When we eventually got there, the audiences were manic,” he says, referring to their five-night run in Dublin in 1991, eight years after they last appeared in Ireland.
“I can still remember playing the intro to Romeo and Juliet at the Point, and as I walked up to the mic, before I could sing, someone yelled, ‘A lovestruck Romeo!’ and everybody roared with laughter. The whole place collapsed. I had to laugh, everybody laughed. We had good times there.”
He’ll be returning to the updated version of the same venue when he tours the album next year. But now 69, he’s limiting his time on the road, and he warns it may well grind to a halt after the tour.
“I have more days off on the road now than I used to,” he says. “I used to play six nights a week, but you get to an age where it’s too much strain, so I do three in a row now, and then a night off, as befits an ageing performer.
“I think touring will be the first casualty. I’ll have to stop, like Paul Simon has just stopped. You can understand it, because it takes a lot out of you. So I’ll go on writing, I’ll go on recording if I can, and then maybe just do the odd show.”
Does that mean the 2019 dates will be his last proper tour?
“It might very well be. It will be funny to say goodbye to it, because it’s always been the end of the cycle. But I won’t think about it. I’ll just make a record like I’ve always made, and then when it comes to talking about the tour, I just won’t talk about it.”
Coming off the road is inevitable unless you’re Bob Dylan; a more curious trend among his peers is to approve a biopic. The newly-released Bohemian Rhapsody tells the story of Queen, while Elton John’s biopic Rocketman is due to appear in cinemas at the end of May next year. But not one to revisit past territory, we won’t see a Mark Knopfler-approved Dire Straits biopic any time soon. Even though it’s begging to be titled Walk of Life.
“I’m not very good at nostalgia – that’s my point with My Bacon Roll,” he says. “I don’t like going back to old school reunions. I’m more interested in now.” That might explain why he was notably absent as Dire Straits were inducted into the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame in April. In the end, former members John Illsley, Alan Clark and Guy Fletcher represented the band. Mark’s brother David Knopfler retracted his attendance when the organisers retracted their offer to cover his travel expenses.
“I can well understand that with only $5 million a year in sponsorships and 100k a table and no fees for the artist that paying my taxi to the airport must have given them heart murmurs,” David wrote on Facebook. The organisers made Dire Straits the first act to be inducted without an induction speech or commemorative performance. Ouch.
Asked to shed light on his absence at an event that prompted the Police, Led Zeppelin and Talking Heads to semi-reunite, he shrugs his shoulders as calm as ever.
“It doesn’t interest me very much,” he says. “And I don’t like being told what to do. They called Paul Crockard [his longtime manager] first. We have the same detectors, and I could tell he wasn’t happy. I think he felt they were dictating the details of how it would run, who should be there, when we should go, how much press to do.
“At that time, I was trying to ride two horses at once: I was writing a musical for Local Hero and trying to make this album, I had plenty to be doing, so it didn’t interest me.
“Also, the name puts me off. Fame is a by-product of success to me. I like that success has enabled me to build this studio, but I don’t know that fame has ever done anything good.”
Aside from touring, Local Hero, the musical, is Knopfler’s main project for 2019. Based on Bill Forsyth’s 1983 film for which he wrote the Bafta-nominated soundtrack, it finally opens at the Royal Lyceum in Edinburgh next March for an initial run.
Knopfler, who was born in Glasgow, says: “I didn’t think I would ever do a musical because I’m not a musical type of a person. I don’t normally get excited about them and it’s not usually my style. But I love the story of Local Hero – it still makes me emotional, and I found I could write songs for the characters.”
So while he may be winding down touring activity soon, with his mental dexterity still evident in his new output – and imminent music lessons – expect to hear new projects from Knopfler in years to come. Just don’t expect a Dire Straits reunion.
