First Dire Straits CD ever ?

[JF]

for a long time I thought that BIA was the first CD in DS' discography

but thanks to farco who revealed (at leats for me) this week that there was one before that.

I share his story :

about 15 years ago he won this CD on an auction on eBay
The seller was the same Frank of the invitation. His name is masked, for obvious privacy reasons
farco asked him some infos about the demonstration and Frank answered: "There were some press and other media people at the presentation, but I believe only Polygram's major customers received a personalized CD. So I doubt if there were more than maybe ten or twenty issued (if that)"

Another collector (interested in this item) did further research.
He asked to Terry Kilburn for that CD but he didn't know anything about it (he believed that Dire Straits' first CD was BIA). But he forwarded the request to Ed Bicknell and this was his reply:

Ed: "Some time that year, Mark and I were invited to a demonstration of the first CD player ever brought to the UK (by Phillips). They wanted to use Private Investigations as the demonstration disc for the format and from memory we said ‘yes’ to that. It seems perfectly logical that we extended the permission to the whole disc for the purposes of the launch."


moreover, Wkipedia says : "The first CD played on BBC Radio was in October 1982 on BBC Radio Scotland (Jimmy Mack programme, Followed by Ken Bruce and Eddie Mair all BBC Scotland), with the first CD played on UK independent radio station shortly after (Radio Forth, Jay Crawford Show). The CD was the Dire Straits album Love Over Gold."


I thought it deserves a post on my blog (in french of course) : https://textes-blog-rock-n-roll.fr/on-a-retrouve-le-tout-premier-cd-de-dire-straits/

maybe you already knew this, but it's new for me


thanks again farco 

[dustyvalentino]

Great, merci!

[stratmad]

Interesting. Actually, I have that pink cd single, which I bought from the Tape&Record Exchange in Portobello Road sometime back in the early nineties. It has been signed by all the band members from the BIA tour (I bought it with the signatures on).

Also, I remember the poster and the little triangular stickers. I know I still have some that promo stuff lying around, I believe.
And I still have that old cd player (the second model that ever came out, I believe) and the thing is actually still working!
Philips produced some very high-end audio equipment at the time, mighty amps the size of a small fridge, and a speaker system called MFB - the sound was just out of this world!

Along with the cd player came a Phonogram demo cd called "Shout - The sound of compact disc":
1. Sultans of Swing (live) - Dire Straits
2. The Long Road - Mark Knopfler
3. Runanway - Bon Jovi
4. Just a shadow - Big Country
5. Hand in Hand - Dire Straits
6. Distant early warning - Rush
7. Wild Theme - MK
8. Love over Gold - DS
9. Shout - Tears for fears

My copy of the Love over Gold cd is also from that time, but I can't remember if it was bought before or after BIA. It says 1982, but I don't know if that's the actual production date or just the copyright. Does anyone have information about the serial numbers?