Before Mark Knopfler wrote “Sultans of Swing,” “Money for Nothing” and countless other classics, he was chasing a different kind of story.

Prior to becoming one of rock’s most admired guitarists, Knopfler worked as a newspaper reporter, covering everything from local news to court cases. Looking back, he says those early years didn’t just prepare him for a career — they taught him how to write songs.

Though his fluid electric guitar playing made him a household name, it’s the people who populate his songs that have always set him apart. Mechanics, truck drivers, musicians, lovers and dreamers all feel startlingly authentic because, in many cases, they began as real people Knopfler observed rather than fictional characters he invented.

“It was a great thing to do as a kid,” he told Stuff in 2009. “I went to college after being a newspaper lackey, and it was a great introduction to ‘life’ as a concept, to the world in general.

“I then moved into court reporting,” he added. “I just remember it all as being a very good thing to be doing, a way to see how society is organized.”

Just as importantly, journalism taught him to listen.

“It influenced me and allowed me to meet people,” he said. “To eavesdrop too, to take stories of other people home.”

Few Dire Straits songs illustrate that better than “Money for Nothing.”

Its narrator — the disgruntled appliance-store employee mocking rock stars on MTV — wasn’t dreamed up in isolation. Knopfler overheard the man’s complaints while shopping and began scribbling lyrics on a borrowed piece of paper right there in the store.

“The lead character in ‘Money for Nothing’ is a guy who works in the hardware department in an appliance store,” he told Musician. “He’s singing the song. I wrote the song when I was actually in the store. I borrowed a bit of paper and started to write the song down.

“I wanted to use a lot of the language that the real guy actually used when I heard him, because it was more real. It just went better with the song; it was more muscular… I mean, that is the way people speak.”

The same curiosity drove “Private Dancer,” his quietly devastating portrait of a sex worker longing for something better. Knopfler ultimately gave the song to Tina Turner, whose recording became an international hit, but its emotional power came from the same instinct he’d developed as a reporter: observing other people’s lives and imagining the world from their perspective.

It’s why so many of Knopfler’s songs blur the line between reportage and fiction. He borrows voices, conversations and tiny everyday details, then shapes them into stories that feel lived-in rather than invented.

For Knopfler, that’s the defining difference between being a musician and being a songwriter.

“First of all, you start to think of yourself as a guitar player of sorts, and then the songwriter,” he told Forbes in 2024. “I’ve come to realize the songwriter is different from a musician.”

It’s a revealing admission from a player celebrated for some of rock’s most iconic guitar work. Knopfler may be revered for his touch and tone, but the foundation of his music was laid years earlier — in courtrooms, on newsroom assignments and in overheard conversations — where he learned that the smallest details often tell the biggest stories.

It would have been safe to assume that, following last year’s record-breaking auction, it would be a long time before another Mark Knopfler–played guitar went under the hammer. Yet, a Baldwin/Burns Double Six solid-body 12-string guitar, used extensively by the Dire Straits man, has defied the odds. It is expected to sell for more than $40,000 when it goes on the block at U.K. auction house Gardiner Houlgate on September 9.

Knopfler sold a staggering 123 guitars via Christie’s in January 2024, raking in roughly $11 million. Just under 30 of those instruments fetched $100,00 apiece, while the standout was a 1959 Vintage Gibson Les Paul Standard that sold for $876,000.

It's little surprise Knopfler acquired so many guitars, given that he has been an inveterate collector throughout his career.

“I still stop and look in a guitar shop window when I pass one on the street,” he told Guitar Player just last year. “Nose up against the glass, that whole thing.”

The unusual Baldwin/Burns Double Six wasn’t one of his impulse buys, however. Knopfler “borrowed” the guitar for a rather extended 50-year period from his pal Jeff Sadler, a fellow northeast England native best known for his work in the folk-rock group Lindisfarne. Sadler bought the guitar in the mid 1970s before lending it to Knopfler. The pair, who were school friends, regularly traded and shared gear.

In Knopfler's hands, the Double Six found employment both in the studio and on stage. It was prominently used in the recording of “Angel of Mercy” and “Portobello Belle,” both from Dire Straits' 1979 sophomore album, Communiqué, and it appeared onstage at Wembley Stadium at 1986 show for the Prince’s Trust (now the King’s Trust). Knopfler also used it to perform “Sailing” at the show with Rod Stewart and Eric Clapton.

The Double Six is one of several models sold by Burns in the U.K. and rebranded by Baldwin for sale in the U.S. (Burns is the same firm behind Jeff “Skunk” Baxter’s bargain six-string, which he played on a disco classic.) The Double Six remained in Knopfler’s hands until last year. It had been earmarked to feature in his Christies fire sale. Upon discovering it in the trove scheduled to go on the block, Knopfler had the guitar returned to Sadler.

Now Sadler has put the guitar up for auction. It's set to be sold in the Gardiner Houlgate auction along with two other notable electric guitars: a 1957 Gretsch Chet Atkins 6120 owned by Jimmy Page, and a 1989 Takamine FP-360SC acoustic-electric used by Pete Townshend.

The Double Six isn't one of Knopfler's better-known guitars, nor is it associated with a major hit record. Although Communiqué is certified Gold in the U.S. and Platinum in the U.K., it produced no major hit singles and is the only Dire Straits record not represented on the Dire Straits/Mark Knopfler compilation album Private Investigations.

Still, the weight of its reputation and the fact that it remained by Knopfler's side for so long is enough to warrant an estimated $40K sale price.

“Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits had a huge influence on music and guitar players not just in the 1980s and ’90s, but through today,” says Gardiner Houlgate auctioneer Luke Hobbs. “I’m confident that this guitar will attract a lot of attention from fans and collectors alike — particularly as it has such a great story behind it. There's lots of provenance to this guitar.”

Visit Gardiner Houlgate for more information ahead of its sale on September 9.

Elsewhere, Knopfler has revealed the iconic guitar tone of one of the band's biggest hits was a stroke of dumb luck, explained why the most challenging aspects of Dire Straits' live shows had nothing to do with guitar playing, and detailed how a cheap guitar inspired his most famous guitar solo.

He's also discussed the one guitar he is “never without.” Like the Burns 12-string, it's another guitar he acquired from a friend and fellow rock legend.

Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms turned 40 years old in May. It was a record that solidified Mark Knopfler’s reputation as one of the finest guitar talents of his generation The band became poster boys of an all-new MTV era, and it has shipped 30 million copies worldwide.

That landmark anniversary has seen Knopfler on the campaign trail, and after telling a Spanish publication that he deems a guitar solo he wrote for a movie as his greatest slice of lead work. Now he’s said those clamoring to define him as a guitar hero, as the band’s fifth studio album hit fever pitch, were “just awkward.”

Granted, the 75-year-old is known to be a self-effacing interviewee. Apart from laughing about his ability to play Dire Straits’ most challenging song without looking, the guitarist has downplayed his picking techniques and said the songs of his hero are “enough to make anybody want to retire.”

So it isn’t a surprise to see him react humbly to such a thought. But speaking to Guitar World, he said he believes those who crowned him as a guitar god were barking up the wrong tree.

“The world is bursting with fabulous players,” he says. “Whether I’ve written a good song or not, that’s what counts to me. I gave up trying to be a great guitar player.”

Indeed, he’d rather be ranked for what he can do as a songwriter than solely for his electric guitar talents. The fact that Brothers in Arms is one of the best-selling albums in U.K. history — The Dark Side of the Moon, Rumours and Sgt. Pepper's… are the only guitar-based albums that top its 4.5 million sales — speaks volumes about his craft.

“I have enough to get by in the studio — that’s how I see myself as a guitar player,” he continues. “Not much more than that. But I can get away with it. If you’re the one who wrote the songs, you’re kind of allowed to be crap.

“The other guys are there, really standing by their instruments: ‘I play piano,’ ‘I play bass.’ Like, ‘I’m good at this and that’s why I’m here.’

“And boy, they are. I got away with murder.”

Knopfler has previously named one player far more deserving of a place in the guitar hero pantheon than he: Jeff Beck. The late great had featured on his all-star re-recording of “Going Home,” and Knopfler has revealed the pair were planning a collaborative album together before his death in January 2023.

During his conversation with GW, however, he turned his attention to the unsung guitar heroes: the session players.

“Those guys that really know their business,” he says. “Making a living with their instruments — that’s a whole other kettle of fish.

“I remember, in the solo band one day, I said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry about the [mistake] in so and so.’ And Richard [Bennett, guitar] said, ‘Well, the singer is always right!’”

Tim Pierce, one of the busiest session players in the business, might be prone to agree, and he's previously spoken about the demands of being a jobbing studio musician.

“We had quite an arms race in our neighborhood,” he reveals. “People would go, ‘Okay, that sounds good, but do you have a Fender Jazzmaster? Do you have an old Tele? How about an old Supro baritone?’ If I didn't bring everything and they asked for something, I’d have this sinking feeling because I wanted to say yes to every request.

“You try to be smart enough to judge what the artist wants from the guitar,” he continues. “Do they want it big and distorted? Do they want it clean and in the background? These are decisions you have to make, often in the first few minutes.

“Sometimes you’ll play something that you believe in with all of your being, and they’ll say, ‘Nah, we don’t like that. What else you got?’ Your ego gets crushed, but you have to bring it back and try something different.”

Those situations can lead to horror stories, as another accomplished session player, Steve Lukather, knows all too well.

Meanwhile, Knopfler has discussed the moment he discovered the power of fingerpicking, and a somewhat overlooked pedal in the architecture of his sound, which helps him mimic the human voice.

Neil Dorfsman, who was behind the desk for Brothers in Arms, has also revealed that one of the record's most famous guitar tones came to be after a stroke of dumb luck. Perhaps that's what Knopfler alluded to when he said he's gotten away with murder.

Bill Forsyth’s 1983 comedy-drama Local Hero boasts two rather lofty accolades. Not only does the film have an indelible 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but its soundtrack features what Mark Knopfler believes is the greatest guitar solo he’s ever written.

It might feel like a sensationalist claim from a guitarist whose back catalog includes chart-smashing hits like “Sultans of Swing” and “Money for Nothing,” which have 2.3 billion Spotify streams between them, but the events of recent years have perhaps skewed things for the Newcastle-born musician.

The film is set in a fictional town on the coast of Scotland. It follows the representative of an American oil company as he pays a visit ahead of the company's purchase of the surrounding land and property.

Knopfler, by that point four albums deep into his Dire Straits career, was tasked with scoring the entire film. He penned “Going Home,” the movie’s main theme after taking inspiration from the Scottish landscape and interweaving snippets of traditional Scottish songs as he went.

“It’s [recorded on] a cheap guitar, it sounds very direct,” he tells Spanish newspaper El Pais. “I did everything wrong, but I think they’re perfect notes.”

In hindsight, he feels the fact that he didn’t slave over the song, and went for feel over thought, has proved its saving grace.

“I think it turned out well because I didn’t take it to the extreme of getting into trouble,” he continues. “I just said what I had to say. I didn’t go too far. I tried to portray the place, the people, the rocks, and the water. For me, it was a portrait of a place, an idea, a local hero.

“For me, the most important thing in a solo is the melody. I value simplicity over complexity. I’m not good enough to improvise like a jazz musician.”

The film scooped one BAFTA award — for Best Direction — from seven nominations and was, in 1999, listed as one of the top 100 British films of the 20th century. It was also adapted for the stage in 2019, premiering at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh.

Newcastle United Football Club, meanwhile, which Knopfler supports, has since adopted the song for the team's walk-out music, while Knopfler gave the song a special charity re-release last year. It helped raise funds for the Pete Townshend-backed Teenage Cancer Trust.

Townshend would go on to feature on the track — “Pete came through the door first armed with a guitar and an amp, he told Guitar Player — and it opened the door to over 60 more contributions from huge names.

Recorded either at Mark Knopfler’s London base, British Grove Studios, or remotely, even Dweezil Zappa’s still unreleased shredathon, “What the Hell Was I Thinking”, pales in comparison.

Eric Clapton, Steve Cropper, Buddy Guy, Alex Lifeson, Tony Iommi and David Gilmour – reading the credits is a who’s who of guitar greats. Beyond that, father-and-son pairing Ringo Starr and Zak Starkey handle drums, Sting plays bass, and Roger Daltrey plays harmonica.

“They just kept coming,” Knopfler had chuckled when reflecting on the project with GP. “Pete came and we plugged [his amp] in, and Pete played a chord. And we were happening, because when Pete plays a chord, it stays played.

“And then I think Eric Clapton came through the doors the next day, and Jeff Beck had recorded something at his place, which was so beautiful. Then David Gilmour came over, and everyone was playing great, and I was really knocked out.”

On the other side of the Atlantic, the likes of Joe Bonamassa, Joe Satriani and Steve Vai were tracking their own contributions. Then, “I came in one day and Bruce Springsteen was all over it.”

The organizers behind the project “just didn’t stop,” Knopfler says. The glut of talent the song boasts has them to thank.

“I remember saying, ‘How are we gonna deal with all this? This is going to be 30 miles long!’”

Revisiting the track and seeing so many other stars swarm the studio to play their part in its new iteration, perhaps made Knopfler reconsider the impact of the song, and its solo.

It also features what is largely considered one of, if not the last, guitar parts Jeff Beck recorded before his death on January 10, 2023. However, Mick Rogers has since cast doubt on that; he believes he has Beck's last-ever recording.

“Jeff was just something other, y’know?” Knopfler says, solemnly. “We’d just begun some talks, through management, about doing an album together. I’m really sorry we didn’t get to work together.”

The guitar Knopfler used to track his parts on the new version of “Going Home” – a 2021 Les Paul Standard Goldtop – was later sold at auction for over £400,000 (about $540,000).

Meanwhile, the “Brothers in Arms” producer has revealed how a stroke of luck resulted in one of the record’s most iconic guitar tones, and Knopfler has named the most challenging Dire Straits song to perform, and it has nothing to do with the riffs.

Mark Knopfler has been celebrated for his guitar tone since Dire Straits dropped their self-titled debut album in 1977.

From the moment guitarists heard the album hit “Sultans of Swing,” it was evident that Knopfler was a player to listen to and learn from. Beyond his evident talents as a guitarist — which would grow over the years as he moved from using a pick to playing exclusively with his fingers — Knopfler has displayed a keen sense for getting just the right tone from a Fender Stratocaster or any other guitar he’s strapped on.

Once “Sultans of Swing” reached the top 10 in the U.S. and U.K., Knopfler continued to refine his sound leading up to the group’s fifth studio album, 1985’s Brothers in Arms.

The record — which features the guitarist's 1937 National Style O resonator guitar on its cover — was an indisputable smash. It would spend nine weeks at the top of the Billboard 200 chart, becoming the first album to be certified 10-times Platinum in the U.K. and selling more than 30 million copies worldwide over the years. For that matter it was was the first album in history to sell more than one million copies in the then-new CD format.

Among the album’s key tracks, nothing stood out quite like “Money for Nothing,” the second single released from Brothers in Arms. Once again, Knopfler’s guitar was front and center, as he defines the song's bluesy rhythm with a now instantly recognizable intro riff.

In creating its snarling, midrange tone, Knopfler was attempting to cop a Billy Gibbons vibe, using his fingers to play a Gibson Les Paul Junior through a Laney amp.

But as producer Neil Dorfsman points out, the sound of Knopfler’s guitar was entirely accidental, a tone they discovered by sheer chance while the guitarist was warming up for the session.

And it all came down to mic placement.

“One mic was pointing down at the floor, another was not quite on the speaker, another was somewhere else, and it wasn't how I would want to set things up," Dorfsman reveals. The set up was "probably left from the night before when I'd prepped things for the next day and hadn't finished...

“Whether it was the phase of mics or the out-of-phaseness, what we heard was exactly what ended up on the record. There was no additional processing on that tune during the mix.”

Dorfsman's recollection was shared on Dire Straits’ TikTok account, where it was included as a caption in a short video to celebrate the release of the 40th anniversary edition of Brothers in Arms.

Reportedly, Dorfsman and Knopfler later attempted to re-create the sound using the same gear and mics but were unsuccessful. Put it down to the magic of the moment, captured for eternity on tape. Either way, it just goes to show what can happen sometimes when you stop thinking and just let the magic happen.

Of course a key part of that tone is Knopfler's decision to use his fingers instead of a pick. As the guitarist revealed in a 1979 interview with Guitar Player, he began changing from pick to fingers in the mid-1970s while performing with his pre–Dire Straits group, Cafe Racers.

"I used to use a pick until a few years ago, when I started getting more and more involved with playing without one," he told us. "Then, a sort of synthesis happened between fingerpicking and getting plectrum-type effects by just using my fingers.

“Eventually, I found myself doing things with just my thumb and two fingers that I couldn't do with a pick. But I still use a plectrum now and again for strumming or for playing on acoustic tracks."

In related news, Knopfler has revealed the source of his inspiration for ditching his youthful aspirations of playing like Jimi Hendrix picks and developing his own more folk-blues influenced style. Surprisingly it's not a famous guitarist but an unknown player from his own neck of the woods.

Growing up, Mark Knopfler was just like any other young guitarist. He chose the biggest players to identify with and emulate.

In the end, however, it was a humble guitarist from his own environs — the North East of England — who had the biggest impact on his guitar journey.

In a new career-spanning interview with BBC Radio 2’s The Rock Show, Knopfler details how fingerpicking revolutionized his guitar playing and how that connected him to the unlikely influence behind one of his greatest riffs.

Until very recently, the Dire Straits man had never truly ditched the guitar pick. Rather, his most defining works, including the stomp and shuffle of “Sultans of Swing,” shone a spotlight onto the pick-free parts of his back catalog.

“Some people fall in love with classical music and want to be a classical musician, or they want to play classical guitar or Spanish guitar,” he says. “I just want to play skiffle and rock and roll.

“I just wanted to be B.B. King or Jimi Hendrix. I loved them both,” he says. “I was playing with a pick then all the time, on electric. I was learning to fingerpick, but that was all I wanted to do. I’d be playing ‘Voodoo Child’ or I’d be playing ‘Purple Haze,’ or ‘Hey Joe.’”

Over time, fingerpicking grew in prominence. Meanwhile, Knopfler — who calls himself “inherently lazy” — became increasingly frustrated that he could never find a pick when he neded one.

That's when the lightbulb went on: the idea that changed his music — and his tone — for the better: He discovered the benefits of fingerpicking, which went beyond not having to search high and low for a guitar pick,

“The attack of your fingers is gonna be more rounded, softer, which maybe is a characteristic of mine,” he says of his eureka moment.

As for that guitarist who influenced him? He was the boyfriend of a friend's older sister.

“It was a folk singer up in Northumberland, Joe Davidson," Knopfler reveals. "I remember, he taught me how to do that. That’s playing four notes to the bar with your thumb, and that changed everything for me because that’s what I wanted to be able to do. So it was like learning to ride a bike.”

The echoes of that moment live on in a song like “Money for Nothing,” even as the musical world he drew it from comes as a surprise. The song was the band’s biggest commercial success and an early darling of the MTV generation. But beneath the overdriven qualities of its riff, it isn’t a rock song.

“It’s a hoedown lick,” Knopfler tells The Rock Show host Shaun Keaveny. “That’s what it is.”

As he revealed in his Guitar Player chat last year, another key change to his playing style came early on came from his sister. The left-handed youngster was miming to a song on a tennis racket, pretending it was an electric guitar, when his sister flipped it around. That stuck with him, and it makes what he can do with his right hand all the more impressive.

At the end of the day, Knopfler isn’t ignorant of the benefits a pick can provide a player.

“It’s louder. It’s faster. It’s got a better signal. It’s the best amplifier there is,” he says.

But as a player who grew up idolizing plectrum-touting players — including the Shadows’ Hank Marvin, who was also a big influence on David Gilmour’s lyrical solo style — Knopfler found something different by following the path that suited him best.

In related news, the guitarist recently named the hardest Dire Straits song to play, which has nothing to do with complexity. On top of that, he’s spoken about the few guitars he could never get rid of and revealed that he and Jeff Beck planned to make an album together before the virtuoso’s death.

Mark Knopfler is such a talented guitarist that you might wonder what song, if any, gives him a run for his money. Better still, which of his own songs gives Knopfler the most grief when he performs it live?

You might think its "Sultans of Swing," DIre Straits' 1978 breakthrough hit. After all, everyone is completely tuned in for his electric guitar solo, a remarkable piece of work that Guitar Player's readers placed in the top 10 of our Greatest Solos of All Time list. What guitarist wouldn't be on edge when attempting to replicate that milestone?

But in fact, the Dire Straits tune Knopfler calls his most challenging is “Telegraph Road” from 1982’s Love Over Gold,. But as he explains, it’s the instrument he plays, rather than the part itself, that makes it such a hard mountain to scale.

Typically, Knopfler employs a 1930s National Style O to perform the song's intricate fingerpicking parts. And, as he tells Vulture, playing such an old guitar — rather than his usual Stratocaster-style model — can be very difficult.

“Some of the guitars are pretty hard to play,” he says. “Playing the beginning of 'Telegraph Road' always seems hard when you’re going from a spiffy electric to that old war horse. You’ve just got to brace your hands for an old guitar from the 1930s. So that’s all part of the challenge of that song, when the guitar itself doesn’t want to play pretty”.

He says the problem was worse in the past, when stage lighting relied on bright lights that generated a ton of heat. Back then, presenting the 14-minute tune was particularly daunting.

“Learning to play those longer songs before the modern lights came in was difficult,” he explains. “They got rid of the big old heavy lights, because if one of those dropped and hit you, you’re a dead person. And the new lights seem as though they don’t generate any heat at all.

"The old lights generated so much heat," he continues. "We were always drenched when we came offstage — literally soaked to the skin. Sweat would be stinging your eyes, so you learn to play with your eyes squeezed shut. I’m pretty sure I played a lot of that stuff without looking. That’s all part of the fun of it: figuring out ways around things.

“I remember someone putting a little note up at the front row that said, ‘More liquid gumption, please.’ I was spraying the audience with so much sweat that it was stinging them. I always used to think, Only rock and roll could do this.”

As Knopfler once said, “Having good chops definitely helps, but it’s not the whole story”. Playing an intricate epic on an instrument now approaching 100 years old when you're blinded by sweat is certainly one way of proving your mettle in less-incendiary circumstances.

In related news, the guitarist last year parted with 123 electric guitars as part of a huge $11 million auction. However, he told Guitar Player that there were some instruments he couldn't bare to part with.

The thorny subject of the greatest guitar solo of all time has long been a fiercely contested debate, probably because every solo is different. How do you compare, say, “Comfortably Numb” with “Crazy Train,” or “Stairway to Heaven” with “Sultans of Swing”? It’s impossible. Still, public opinion ebbs and flows, and we wanted to find out which solos currently rank among our readers as the greatest of them all.

So we ran a poll on GuitarPlayer.com to find out and here we present the results. We’ll take a look at the stories behind the songs and find out just what made those lead guitar breaks so great through conversations with Brian May, Kirk Hammett, Michael Schenker and others.

20. Gary Moore | “Still Got the Blues”

GUITARIST: GARY MOORE (1990)

The definitive blues guitar ballad.

Presented as the title track from his 1990 album, this wistful tune in A minor became Gary Moore’s calling card fairly late in his career, when he reinvented himself as a blues artist. There’s a point in the solo where you can hear the Belfast great switch from the neck humbucker to the bridge on the 1959 Les Paul Standard he nicknamed Stripe and start deviating from its main theme, mainly sticking within the A minor pentatonic scale, with a few notes from the Aeolian and harmonic minor scales.

Moore was plugged into his prototype Marshall JTM-45 reissue head with one of the company’s newly designed Guv’nor distortion pedals out in front. More than 30 years later, this remains one of the most raw and expressive blues tracks, with Moore almost fighting his guitar at points, yet never failing to deliver the goods

19. Metallica | “Fade To Black”

GUITARIST: Kirk Hammett (1984)

Metallica’s first ballad features some of Kirk’s most epic playing.

Recorded at Flemming Rasmussen’s Sweet Silence Studios in Copenhagen in February and March 1984, Ride the Lightning, Metallica’s sophomore album, was more progressive and stylistically greater in scope than the all-out thrash assault of their debut, Kill ’Em All. That change is evident on “Fade to Black,” which features acoustic guitars and a nonstandard structure more akin to the “Stairway to Heaven” school of songcraft. But it is the song’s timeless melodic solo that most vividly signals a stylistic shift in guitarist Kirk Hammett’s playing. And the signature element he employs for the last solo is arpeggios.

“I have been playing that song for so long now,” Kirk tells our sister publication Total Guitar. “For the very last solo, I know how I want to start it, but then I am in an area where I can improvise for 16, 18 or 24 bars, and then [drummer] Lars [Ulrich] will hit a certain fill, which means that it’s up and it’s time for the arpeggio part. And then I just slide right into those arpeggios.” And they are arpeggios played on two strings, Hammett specifies. “When guitar players first started incorporating arpeggios into their playing, before the whole Yngwie sweep-picking thing, arpeggios were played on two strings – not three or four strings,” he explains. “And that was what the vogue was at the time in the 1980s, so I have been playing those for a long time. I use my middle finger just to anchor my position on the neck.”

That’s a great tip from the man who plays the solos. But how should you tackle them yourself? First, there are two essential scales you’ll need to know: the B natural minor scale and the B Phrygian mode, both shown below. These cover you for the entire opening 30 bars, which, let’s face it, is a lot of music, so this is a good reason to learn a couple of shapes if ever there was one.

To make it simpler, most of your time is spent in the natural minor scale. Not until around bar 20 will you find yourself briefly landing on the C note, which appears in the Phrygian mode. The bottom line is that Hammett improvises this part of the solo live – and these are the shapes he uses.

Up next are those two-string arpeggio shapes, and they’re 16th notes – all of them! At 142 bpm, it’s pretty fast, but Hammett doesn’t pick every note, opting to use pull-offs to make those rapid licks easier. It’s definitely something to experiment with and if you’re still struggling, you could try adding in an occasional hammer‑on, too.

18. Steely Dan | “Kid Charlemagne”

GUITARIST: Larry Carlton (1976)

Messin’ with the “Kid.”

Steely Dan’s catalog is filled with remarkable guitar solos, but Larry Carlton’s brilliant work on The Royal Scam’s “Kid Charlemagne” remains the most celebrated. Carlton strings together a series of tasty phrases that follow the underlying chord changes with a blend of inside and outside playing that is technically mind bending and emotionally satisfying.

“I was pretty familiar with the tune, so I just improvised,” he tells Guitar Player. “People think I’m kidding when I say that, like I had worked the solo out beforehand, but I didn’t. It was straight improv, and it worked.” Very well, in fact. Perhaps more has been written about his solo than of the song itself.

Despite the acclaim, Carlton was, and remains, nonplussed. “When the record came out, there was a wonderful review of the tune in Billboard and they raved about the solo,” he says. “I put the record on and listened to it with my wife, and at the end of it I said, ‘I don’t know. It just sounds like me.’”

17. Cream | “Crossroads”

GUITARIST: Eric Clapton (1968)

The finest rock and roll cover of an acoustic blues song.

It started as a blues tune called “Cross Road Blues” by Robert Johnson and became one of the finest examples of natural ability, soulfulness and showmanship from a virtuosic 22-year-old guitarist named Eric Clapton. His reimagining of the song as “Crossroads” further cemented a legacy that by then had earned him the nickname God.

Famously recorded at San Francisco’s Fillmore West venue for supergroup Cream’s Wheels of Fire album, Clapton’s arrangement retains the soul and spirit of Johnson’s original but updates it for a contemporary audience raring to cut loose and be entertained by dazzlingly quick, passionate musicianship.

Remarkably, Clapton is no fan of the performance: He complains that the band lost the “one” in the first verse of his second solo break, thereby throwing off his phrasing. That’s perfectionism for you. For everyone else, this four-minute track remains a source of fascination more than 50 years on.

16. Eric Johnson | “Cliffs Of Dover”

GUITARIST: Eric Johnson (1990)

Heavenly tones from the Texan great.

This instrumental won Eric Johnson a Grammy for its exquisitely tasteful guitar playing and jaw-dropping tones. For the recordings, the Texan musician mainly stuck with his early ’60s ES-335, though he chose to use his 1964 “Virginia” Strat for the opening lead and parts of the main solo. The guitars were fed into a 100-watt Marshall Super Lead, with an Echoplex and BK Butler Tube Driver to help achieve those smooth, violin-like tones and warm sustain.

“I first heard him in 1986 on Live at Austin City Limits,” Joe Bonamassa told us in 2015. “It was ‘Cliffs of Dover,’ and it was just terrifyingly good guitar playing. I wasn’t even sure if it was real! Then I saw him live, and his tones were the best I’d ever heard. I wondered how this guy was getting all of these sounds out of his Strat. I’d never seen anybody have such a forward-thinking rig like that.”

15. Prince | “Purple Rain”

GUITARIST: Prince (1984)

The Purple One’s defining guitar moment.

The epic outro to “Purple Rain” – which takes up nearly two thirds of the song itself – stands out as some of Prince’s finest work on the six-string, wailing away in G minor pentatonic and occasionally including some more modal notes, like the minor 6th. There’s also that repeating motif that dances around the 2nd and minor 3rd intervals.

It’s simple and effective, setting things up for the vocal melody that comes in toward the end. It’s not a busy solo by any means. Rather, the Purple One chose to leave a lot of space in between the lines he played and focus on big hooks instead of monster licks.

Prince would extend the solo for up to 15 minutes in live performance. While there are many great live renditions of this track, his half-time performance for 2007’s Super Bowl in Miami is the stuff of legend. Shredding alone onstage in the middle of a storm, Prince seemed to be living the moment for which this song was written.

14. Deep Purple | “Highway Star”

GUITARIST: Ritchie Blackmore (1972)

Race with devil on English highway.

“I wrote that out note for note about a week before we recorded it,” Ritchie Blackmore said of his remarkable and most definitely memorable solo to “Highway Star.” “And that is one of the only times I have ever done that. I wanted it to sound like someone driving in a fast car, for it to be one of those songs you would listen to while speeding. And I wanted a very definite Bach sound, which is why I wrote it out – and why I played those very rigid arpeggios across that very familiar Bach progression – D minor, G minor, C major, A major. I believe that I was the first person to do that so obviously on the guitar, and I believe that that’s why it stood out and why people have enjoyed it so much.

“Over the years, I’ve always played that solo note for note, but it just got faster and faster onstage because we would drink more and more whisky. [Keyboardist] Jon [Lord] would have to play his already difficult part faster and faster, and he would get very annoyed about it.”

13. Guns N’ Roses | “Sweet Child O’ Mine”

GUITARIST: Slash (1988)

A game of two halves.

Slash’s solo on this Guns N’ Roses breakthrough single is rock guitar at its finest. The first half is laid-back and modal, built around the Eb minor scale with a few major 7ths thrown in for a harmonic-minor flavor. The second half is much more aggressive and bluesy, and sticks mainly to position one of the pentatonic scale an octave up the neck in the same key. The bends feel that much wider and the vibrato more pronounced.

Slash plays the first section on the neck pickup for thickness and warmth before switching over to the bridge for more bite, with his Cry Baby engaged. Perhaps most impressive is his off-the-cuff sense of feel and how he strings it all together, which is the mark of any great guitar solo. Remarkably, although Slash’s riff was responsible for the song’s creation, he wasn’t fond of the song originally. “We were a pretty hard driving band, and that was sort of an uptempo ballady type of a thing,” he said. “So it’s grown on me over the years.”

12. Ozzy Osbourne | “Crazy Train”

GUITARIST: Randy Rhoads (1980)

Fretboard fireworks galore on Ozzy’s Blizzard of Ozz comeback.

The Double-O has often cited Randy Rhoads as the man who saved his career – and when you hear the solo on “Crazy Train,” you understand why. Although Rhoads’ classical- and modal-based approach was far from Tony Iommi’s blues leanings, he was, like Ozzy’s old bandmate, a true inventor.

There’s a section toward the end of this solo that actually sounds like a train squealing off the tracks, thanks to the use of a chromatically ascending trill that then descends in key. Rhoads concludes the solo with a fast-picked F# minor pentatonic phrase before a rapid Aeolian legato run ending with a big bend on the 19th fret.

The shredder performed the solo with his customized Jackson guitar through a Marshall and a couple of 4x12s while sitting in the control room. “We’d plug the guitar directly into the console,” recalls Blizzard of Ozz engineer Max Norman. “We’d preamp it in the console and send it down to the amp from there. That way we could control the amount of gain that hit the amp.”

11. Michael Jackson | “Beat It”

GUITARIST: Eddie Van Halen (1982)

Breathtaking results from an unlikely pairing.

Asked to contribute guitar to Michael Jackson’s Thriller album, Pete Townshend declined but offered a suggestion: How about Eddie Van Halen? Jackson and producer Quincy Jones thought that was a great idea, and got Ed onboard to play the solo to “Beat It.” But after hearing the part where he was asked to solo, the guitarist was unhappy with the chord changes and had the engineer edit the tape to create a new pattern that better suited what he had in mind.

Ed knew Jackson might be surprised and possibly unhappy with his executive decision. “So I warned him before he listened,” he told CNN in 2012. “I said, ‘Look, I changed the middle section of your song.’ Now in my mind, he’s either going to have his bodyguards kick me out for butchering his song, or he’s going to like it. And so he gave it a listen, and he turned to me and went, ‘Wow, thank you so much for having the passion to not just come in and blaze a solo but to actually care about the song and make it better.’” And he did it for free.

10. The Beatles | “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”

GUITARIST: Eric Clapton (1968)

An uncredited Slowhand makes a rare guest appearance with the Fab Four.

By 1968, George Harrison was penning compositions that rivaled those of his bandmates John Lennon and Paul McCartney. “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” was every bit as good as anything his musical partners wrote, but no one could get up the enthusiasm for it, so Harrison invited his pal Eric Clapton to play on the session, knowing it would put the Beatles on good behavior.

Using Harrison’s 1957 “Lucy” Gibson Les Paul through a Fender Deluxe amp, Clapton doesn’t so much mimic the haunting, aching main melody as he creates a harrowing song within a song. His descending bends and release notes, and that inimitable vibrato, are on full display and are appropriately tear-jerking, weaving a dramatic narrative that builds to a shattering climax.

9. Chicago | “25 OR 6 TO 4”

GUITARIST: Terry Kath (1969)

Wah-drenched ecstasy.

This magazine once described Terry Kath’s “25 or 6 to 4” solo as “Wes Montgomery meets Jimi Hendrix,” and it’s a fair point, as Kath was influenced first by jazz and, later, hard rock. As a founding member of the jazz-rock band Chicago, he held down guitar duties for the group until his tragic death from an accidentally self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1978.

Though his superb playing graced many tracks – notably “Introduction” and “Free Form Guitar,” both from the group’s 1969 debut, The Chicago Transit Authority – there’s no denying the power of his soloing on the group’s early hit “25 or 6 to 4.” Kath uses his wah generously to add emotion to his lines, giving them at times a frenetic despair.

Kath most likely played his Gibson SG Standard, as pictured on Chicago Transit Authority’s inner sleeve, using his favored string set, as revealed to GP: the high E string from a tenor set and a standard set for the rest, moved down one string (i.e. high E for the B string, B for the G string, and so on).

8. Lynyrd Skynyrd | “Free Bird”

GUITARIST: Allen Collins (1974)

The Bird is the word.

As it happens, the four-minute-and-24- second guitar solo that closes “Free Bird” was originally added to give singer Ronnie Van Zant a chance to rest his vocal cords during Lynyrd Skynyrd’s relentless performance schedule. At 143 bars long, the solo is far and away the most epic offering here (in fact, it’s 286 bars of recorded music because the whole thing is doubled).

The tune appeared on the group’s eponymous debut album in 1973, and guitarist Allen Collins delivered the lot on his 1964 Gibson Explorer. As Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Gary Rossington once told Guitar World, “The whole long jam was Allen Collins himself. He was bad. He was super bad! He was bad-to-the-bone bad. When we put the solo together, we liked the sound of the two guitars, and I could’ve gone out and played it with him. But the way he was doin’ it, he was just so hot! He just did it once and did it again, and it was done.”

7. Dire Straits | “Sultans Of Swing”

GUITARIST: Mark Knopfler

An understated guitar hero fingerpicks his way to glory.

Right when the world was crowning Eddie Van Halen the new King of Guitar, along came the rather unassuming Mark Knopfler – schooled in rockabilly, blues and jazz – who demonstrated that you didn’t need walls of distortion to turn heads.

Knopfler composed this pub-rock classic on a National steel guitar but thought it sounded “dull” – that is, until he picked up a Stratocaster, at which point the song “came alive.” Using nary a hint of grit on a Fender Twin, he fingerpicks not one but two standout solos.

The first features a lyrical section of elegant, Chet Atkins-style single-note and chordal bends that sigh and swoon with dreamy romanticism. In itself, that would be enough, but the outro solo is the real attention-grabber, on which Knopfler builds to a dazzling set of spitfire 16th-note arpeggios – cleanly played, precise and rousing every time you hear it.

6. The Jimi Hendrix Experience | “All Along The Watchtower”

GUITARIST: Jimi Hendrix (1968)

The greatest solo in a cover version.

This song tops any list of covers that are better than the original. Guitarists invariably refer to it as a Hendrix cover rather than a Bob Dylan original, proof of how much Hendrix made it his own. Jimi’s rhythm playing is astounding, both in the intro and in the deft chord/ melody work of the verses, and of course, there’s the small matter of four guitar solos to consider. The man many refer to as the best of all time makes the most of his Strat and Marshall rig here, but it’s his offering at the 2:20 mark that we’re interested in. Following an opening run of octaves, he gets into his stride with a typically blues-based minor pentatonic approach in C#.

At 2:32, the main solo explodes into a trademark combination of rhythm and lead, plus funky scratching on muted strings. It’s worth playing along with the scratches, trying to keep a loose wrist and consistent down-up strumming. Those few beats alone will teach you a lot about Jimi’s groove and feel.

To get the sound, select a bridge-position single-coil pickup, dial in delay at around 350ms, add compression for sustain and opt for a Vox wah pedal or something similar. You’ll hear the wind begin to howl.

5. Eagles | “Hotel California”

GUITARISTS: Don Felder & Joe Walsh (1977)

Those iconic twin-guitar harmony lines took the Eagles to new heights.

The title track from the Eagles’ fifth album, and without doubt the song the band will be most remembered for, “Hotel California” frequently tops greatest guitar solo polls. The solo begins at 4:20, forming an extended coda, over which guitarists Don Felder and Joe Walsh trade licks before joining together to play those iconic harmonized licks at 5:39.

As it turns out, those harmony lines work in a relatively simple fashion. Felder and Walsh play an arpeggio of every chord, and the harmony is created by one of the guitars always playing one note lower down in the chord. For example, the notes of the Bm chord are B, D and F#, so, if the higher guitar plays an F#, the lower guitar will play a D, and so on.

This nugget of information can take you a long way to mastering those descending arpeggios. We won’t go as far as to say you could easily work it out by ear, but if you know the chords to the song, it’s possible to jam along. And you can’t say that about many of the solos on this list!

4. Queen | “Bohemian Rhapsody”

GUITARIST: Brian May (1975)

It might just be the biggest rock song of all time.

Following Freddie Mercury’s 1991 death and a cameo moment in 1992’s Wayne’s World, “Bohemian Rhapsody” became a trigger point for a worldwide outpouring of affection and respect for Queen. Their renewed popularity would continue into the new millennium as Ben Elton’s We Will Rock You musical and the band’s discovery of a different way to exist behind frontman Adam Lambert brought their music to a new generation.

And “Bohemian Rhapsody”? Unsurprisingly, it’s Queen’s best-known song, and its brief nine-bar solo is a short and sweet musical interlude, bridging the verses to lead into what’s become known as the song’s “operatic section.” Those two words alone should warn you that this song shouldn’t work. There’s no chorus and, aside from two verses, no repetition. But of course it does work, and Brian May’s solo is the perfect melodic break.

His phrasing is loose and natural, moving across the backbeat rather than sticking to a rigidly timed grid. The fastest licks are expressive bursts, rather than repetitive noodling, and his articulate pre-bend and vibrato technique demonstrates his beautiful touch. Somehow, within the confines of the complex structure of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” this solo is made to order.

3. Led Zeppelin | “Stairway To Heaven”

GUITARIST: Jimmy Page (1971)

Heaven-sent soloing.

From the moment Jimmy Page plays the opening run on his ’59 Fender Telecaster, right through to the flurry of notes and the wailing bend that completes it, this is guitar-solo perfection – a masterpiece of composition. Rather than wander aimlessly, Page creates a song within a song.

The opening phrases set the scene, as he adds notes to the pentatonic scale to follow the song’s final chord progression. A rapid mid-solo repeating lick raises the bar before a game of question-and-answer with a haunting overdubbed guitar leads into that last flurry and bend. As we say, it’s all about the composition: licks that track the chord changes, the contour of the melody and the pacing of the widdly bits all take the listener on a journey.

Three takes were recorded (the other two allegedly still survive, presumably locked in a Led Zeppelin vault somewhere), all of them improvised, although Page has reportedly said that he had worked out the opening line. But while we’re all certainly curious to hear those solos, let’s face it: They’re not going to be any better than the one we’ve come to know and love all these years.

2. Van Halen | “Eruption”

GUITARIST: Eddie Van Halen (1978)

Eddie’s iconic solo that shook the world.

With its mix of fast legato hammer‑ons and pull-offs, pinched harmonics, whammy-bar dives and two-hand tapping, Eddie Van Halen’s mind-blowing instrumental guitar solo inspired a generation of guitar heroes. While the tapping gets the attention, his tone, blistering legato and creative note choices are all equally important. Amid all that virtuosity, Eddie still played with joyous rock and roll abandon.

Remarkably, Ed was never completely happy with the released recording. “I didn’t even play it right,” he told Guitar World. “There’s a mistake at the top end of it. Whenever I hear it, I always think, Man, I could’ve played it better.”

His admission aside, the track is a technical opus. The first eight bars are a bluesy affair, whose virtuoso legato licks perhaps recall the mojo of Jimmy Page’s breakdown solo in Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love.” It’s a theme Eddie develops over the following eight bars, taking notes from the major and minor pentatonic scales to add chromatics.

His tapping finale is probably one of the least understood solo sections in rock history. Eddie’s taps are not always on the beat, which makes for tricky timing changes as he switches from tapping the first and fourth sextuplet notes to the third and sixth notes. From start to end, “Eruption” is a masterpiece that would take most guitarists a lifetime to perfect.

1. Pink Floyd | “Comfortably Numb”

GUITARIST: David Gilmour (1979)

Gilmour’s greatness comes through in waves.

In a 1992 interview with MTV’s Ray Cokes, Gilmour was asked what he thinks of Keith Richards’ theory that songs, lyrics and guitar solos are “just out there in the air and you sort of grab them.” Gilmour agreed. “I think he’s right. They sort of appear as if they are out there in the air. But I don’t know how they get there.” But the best ones he said, just happen. “The best ones do, but often you work very hard and struggle over them.”

Gilmour's two "Comfortably Numb" solos are certainly among his best, and it’s easy to understand why our readers voted his efforts to be the number-one pick in our poll. But the real question is, which of those two solos qualifies for inclusion? Whichever way you go — and granted, most fans prefer the first solo to the second — there's certainly plenty to justify the song's position at the top.

The tone is legendary. Gilmour’s signal chain consisted of his iconic black Strat, then featuring a DiMarzio FS-1 bridge pickup, into a HiWatt DR103, with the essential EHX Ram’s Head Big Muff pedal. The FS-1’s fatness and the Big Muff’s smoothness leave no hint of the harsh treble that can plague Strats. With some extra help from an MXR Dyna Comp, Gilmour had so much sustain that he could hold notes as long as he wanted. As in his live rig, he combined a WEM 4x12 cab with a Yamaha rotary speaker lower in the mix, to add subtle modulation. The epic delay was added in the mix.

The first solo, in D major, uses the Strat’s neck and bridge pickups together, permitted by a custom switching arrangement. His phrasing here is the more unconventional of the two, with arpeggios and sliding passages. Gilmour’s use of the bar for vibrato – aided by its shortened tremolo arm – again distinguishes him from typical bluesers, inspiring many a fusion player in the process. He rakes into the beginning of many of the phrases, similar to Brian May, extracting all the excitement he can from every note.

By comparison, the outro solo’s licks are more standard, with phrases similar to Hendrix’s. The passages at 4:57 and 5:12 could be from “All Along the Watchtower” or “Foxey Lady,” but in this epic track few listeners would make the connection. It sounds both masterful and improvised at the same time. Gilmour has explained he created this impression by recording five or six takes and compiling the finished solo from the best bits of each. The result is stunningly well written, with a combination of repetition and development that keeps the excitement building for two minutes. The Hendrix-style blues lick returns at 5:27, longer and more intricate than before. The aggressive double-stops first appear at 5:15, and by 5:35 he has turned that idea into a motif.

For the climax, Gilmour shoots up an octave just when it seems he’s wrung every inch of expression from his maple neck. He descends back down the neck, incorporating one of his spectacular three-fret bends on the way, and finishes with another take on that double stop motif. It has all the excitement of an improvised performance, and all the structure of a careful composition.

Both solos share brilliant rhythmic awareness. Gilmour uses triplets, sextuplets, 16th and 32nd notes freely, within the same phrase. And check out the effect at 5:10 when he plays a lick in 16th notes and then immediately repeats and expands in sextuplets. A good solo can have great tone, rhythms, melody or expression, but only a work of rare brilliance features them all to this degree.

It’s virtually impossible to pare decades of rock and roll down to a top-ten list. There are, however, some guitar solos every player needs to know about.

Here are some of the greatest ever committed to record...

10. "Statesboro Blues" by The Allman Brothers Band from 'At Fillmore East' (1971)

Guitarist: Duane Allman

Although the end of "Layla" may be more memorable to most folks, Allman’s Statesboro slide show verifies his title as the undisputed king of bottleneck guitar. 

Slick as oil but with the ability to stop on a dime, Allman not only redefined how slide guitar was played but also created a recycling market for empty Coricidin bottles.

9. "Sweet Child O' Mine" by Guns N' Roses from 'Appetite for Destruction' (1987)

Guitarist: Slash

While Axl swayed and sashayed like Steve Wonder around his mic stand, Slash laid back with his Les Paul, patiently waiting for his turn in the spotlight. 

Then, with his blistering ascent up the E harmonic minor scale – which kicks the second solo of this tune into high gear – the top-hatted genius single-handedly breathed new life into wah-pedal sales.

8. "Crossroads" by Cream from 'Wheels of Fire' (1968)

Guitarist: Eric Clapton

Slowhand? Not on this track. Clapton pulls out every blues-rock move in his lick-tionary for this roadhouse romper. 

The true voodoo of this solo lies at the crossroads where major and minor pentatonic tonalities meet, mingle and blast off from E.C.’s fretboard. 

Ol’ Scratch surely smiled when he heard this one.

7. "Crazy Train" by Ozzy Osbourne from 'Blizzard of Ozz' (1980)

Guitarist: Randy Rhoads

You almost wonder if Ozzy named this tune after hearing Rhoads’ white-knuckled rock and roll ride up and down the F# minor scale. 

What more could you want in a metal guitar solo? Tapping, rakes, bends, trills ascending legato runs... 

Rhoads set Eighties guitarists on the rails of neoclassical rock with this one. All aboard!

6. "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin from 'Led Zeppelin IV' (1971)

Guitarist: Jimmy Page

Jimmy Page's "Stairway” solo is nothing short of divine. 

His resolution to the natural F note in the opening minor pentatonic lick of the solo couldn’t have been more perfect if the Almighty himself had chosen the note.

5. "Sultans of Swing" by Dire Straits from 'Dire Straits' (1978)

Guitarist: Mark Knopfler

Sultan says, “Spend less time making your harem moan and more time making your guitar cry and sing!” 

For those of you who’ve learned the outro solo the lazy way – playing eighth-note triplets for the daunting Dm, Bb and C arpeggios – get your fingers back to the wood shed. 

Those are 16th notes that the “Sultan of Strat” rips off.

4. "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd from 'Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd' (1973) 

Guitarist: Gary Rossington and Allen Collins

To paraphrase Adrian Belew in King Crimson’s "Indiscipline," "I repeat my licks, I repeat my licks, I repeat my licks…” 

This could go on forever – kinda like the outro solo to "Free Bird," in which guitarists Rossington and Collins double each other for most of this pull-off parade. 

It’s impressive not because of the degree of difficulty of the licks but because of the sheer volume they need to recall – 27, including variations!

3. "Eruption" by Van Halen from 'Van Halen' (1978) 

The Holy Grail for all aspiring rock guitarists. Learn Eddie Van Halen's "Eruption" and you’ve earned some serious bragging rights. 

But if you really want props, you’ve got to tame the whole volcano, not just the tremolo picking and tapping sections.

2. "All Along the Watchtower" by the Jimi Hendrix Experience from 'Electric Ladyland' (1968)

Jimi Hendrix offers plenty of reason to get excited in his "Watchtower" solo. 

Besides his masterful manipulation of the C# minor pentatonic scale, Hendrix’s wah-drenched octave climb and the double-stops in the latter half bear out his gift for melodic embellishment. 

It’s enough to make any cat growl.

1. "Little Wing" by Stevie Ray Vaughan from 'The Sky Is Crying' (1991)

With little bits of Jimi, Wes and Mayfield, and a whole lotta soul, SRV exhibits exceptional dynamic prowess throughout, making this reverent Hendrix cover his own. 

A seemingly lost art among modern-day guitarists, Vaughan’s R&B-style chord melody is like priceless art. It should be both admired and studied.

The following appeared in the September 2019 issue of Guitar Player.

“The landscape of guitar playing covers a massive geography for me,” Mark Knopfler says. “It goes all the way from Scotland into England and through the Delta, with important stops in a bunch of other places along the way. I like to think I’m bringing all those influences to bear every time I play. But when it comes to guitar – and, really, music in general – you truly only get to be a tiny part of it. It’s something that’s much, much bigger than you are.”

Humble words from a guy who has done it all: recorded massive hit records, written critically acclaimed soundtrack work and collaborated with heroes and contemporaries alike. Through it all, he has done something even rarer still: He’s secured a place on the Two-Note List – the unofficial roster of guitar players so identifiable and unique, most guitarists can pick them out after hearing them play just two notes. We all know who those players are, and Knopfler is one of them.

When Guitar Player spoke to the Dire Straits legend back in 2019, he was about to undertake a massive world tour in support of his latest solo album, 2018’s Down the Road Wherever (British Grove Records). At the time, Knopfler was looking forward to bringing his music to U.S. fans. “My songs are made to be performed live,” he told us. “I love the whole process of writing them alone and then recording them with the band, but ultimately the best part is playing them to an audience live. I enjoy the whole circus, traveling from town to town and interacting with this group of players is a total pleasure.”

And, of course, seeing Knopfler live onstage is the best way to experience his singular tone. It was “Sultans of Swing,” the first single from Dire Straits’ 1978 debut, that got it started. One of the Strattiest Strat tones of all time, Knopfler’s clean, bridge-and-middle pickup sound was created with a three-position switch on his ’61 Strat, with the selector crammed in a very Hendrix-approved, but anachronistic “in-between position.” (For the record, that bridge/middle sound on a Strat has been known since 1978 as either the "Knopfler Tone” or the “Sultans Tone.”)

The tune was plucked with his bare fingers, and it stood in stark contrast to the overdriven bombast of what was typical rock guitar at the time. As for its chords, fills and two burning solos, they showed the world that the young guitarist was the whole package: a deft rhythm player who could weave in funky answers to his vocal lines, and then peel off deep, memorable solos that combined bluesy pentatonics, liquid harmonic minor melodies and stunning arpeggiated figures, all the while singing profound lyrics that he wrote and never losing sense of the groove.

Welcome to the big leagues, Mark Knopfler! That didn’t take very long at all. 

From there, Knopfler wrote more of the aforementioned hits, defined an era of MTV and found himself on the same stages as the biggest bands in the world – because his band was one of the biggest bands in the world. At that point, Knopfler wasn’t just a player – he was a seasoned, all-star veteran, a guy that people looked up to, and a musician that music fans expected to, you know, do some stuff.

So what did he do? Over the next years, he produced records for two of his biggest heroes, namely Chet Atkins and Bob Dylan. He recorded soundtracks to films that would move and inspire generations of viewers. And he collaborated with artists like Emmylou Harris, Sonny Landreth, Eric Clapton, B.B. King, and many, many more. Along the way, he influenced scores of great guitarists in a bunch of different styles who didn’t sound like him but wished they could. He brought his awesome touch, tone, taste, and feel to the entire world, and he did it with all the dynamics, depth, and Knopfler-isciousness that he did as the young man who played guitar on a song called “Sultans of Swing.”

And he’s nowhere near done.

After dozens of albums and a boatload of awards, he keeps creating. Down the Road Wherever features 13 tracks of introspective writing fueled by his subtly powerful guitar stylings. Here, he speaks about the creation of the album, his take on distortion, and what it’s like to work with your heroes.

Your latest record opens with the tune “Trapper Man,” with a fingerpicked National that goes into a fairly heavy distorted electric guitar. Some people think those two tones couldn’t peacefully coexist in a song, but they do. You’ve always been good at sticking things in songs that “don’t belong” and making them work. Why do you think that is?

I suppose I’ve always done that, from an early age. You can think of “Brothers in Arms” as an accordion song, and I’m playing guitar across all of that stuff. When there’s Celtic music playing, I feel perfectly at home joining in on electric. And actually, the more power there is on the electric, the better it is for me, exactly because of that contrast you’re referring to.

I’m not really a fan of strict orthodoxy in anything. My bluegrass band would have bluegrass instruments, but then I’d play electric guitar, but I’d also be willing to play concrete mixer or machine tools. I don’t dig the folk police, or the tango police, or anyone who might turn around and say, “Well, that’s not the right lineup or instrumentation.” The bluegrass police might object to my concrete mixer, and I have no patience for that.

That’s been a hallmark of your career. Do you think it comes from the eclectic music that you’ve listened to in your life? Growing up, you had an equal love for blues, rock, rockabilly, country and more. Is that how you’ve struck down those barriers?

Yes, exactly, it is. I can remember playing in folk clubs, and there might be someone from the club who would say, “This is an English folk club. We don’t do American songs here.” And I thought that was absolute bullshit, because who knows if those songs were English or American anyway? Those songs have been across the Atlantic in both directions many times. Folk purists give me a pain.

Talk to me a little bit about “Just a Boy Away from Home,” from the new album. The tuning sounds like dropped C or open C.

It’s open C, and there’s quite a heavy set of strings on the guitar, which was an old ’60s Strat. I actually played that guitar on a bunch of songs in normal tuning on the Sailing to Philadelphia album [from 2000]. It just turned out to sound pretty nice with a slide on it, but then again a lot of guitars do. I think a lot of guitars are quite surprised to find themselves working out on slide.

You’re humble about your slide playing, but the fact is, you’re great at it. How do you play so beautifully in tune?

Oh, with difficulty.

How did you work your slide chops up?

Well, I started with the simple, straight-ahead stuff, like Elmore James. I think what happens is, when you go back that far, it adds a depth to your own playing. I also spent a lot of years playing country blues and acoustic blues on slide. Then I played with Sonny Landreth, and I love the way he plays. I’ve never actually asked Sonny to show me what he does, fretting behind the slide and all that. But then, a few years back, I just started doing it, and it sort of worked for me too.

Fingerpicking is a big part of it as well. It’s a combination of these little runs and moves, fretting behind the slide and picking with thumb and fingers.

What slides do you use?

I use Diamond slides. They can make them with pictures on the front of them, so I’ve got one with Chet Atkins and one with Elvis. One thing that’s interesting about them is that the hole is offset – it’s not in the center – so you can work with different thicknesses on the same slide.

Talk about the lead tone on “Back on the Dance Floor,” another great track from Down the Road Wherever. How was that tone created?

That would be probably the good old Les Paul-meets-Marshall. If it’s not that, it’s Les Paul meets Linda, which is a Komet that Ken Fischer made for me. Linda is very, very loud. A fantastic amp.

You’ve always been good at navigating loud, distorted sounds. You play very dynamically with massive tones that, depending on your touch, can seem almost clean and dirty at the same time. What do you look for in a dirty sound? How dirty is too dirty?

It’s a great question. I work on the dynamics in my sound, and it’s something I can’t do enough. Because once you overstep the gain, as opposed to the overall level, it squashes up too much and you lose all the dynamics.

That’s all that it is, really – a balancing act. Sometimes it’s played quietly, and sometimes it’s played more emphatically, and that’s part of the fun of it. You don’t need the faders on the board. It’s about getting a happening sound, and if you want to play a solo with that sound, you can if you lay into it.

Your solo on “Nobody Does That” has a really nice sense of composition, with a strong theme and variations on that theme. Was it composed or was that improvised?

That was a first take, the first time with the band. Then we edited sections together.

It’s an amazing band moment.

Everybody in the band is listening and reacting in real time. You can’t simply exist in your own bubble; that’s the kiss of death. You’ve got to be thinking about where you belong in the conversation, in that fabric.

All of these players are masters at being in the correct sonic range, not going into an area that’s being inhabited by someone else. And your first inclination to do something can be very, very valuable. That’s why first takes have often got that energy to them. They’ve got that relish, you know?

It’s definitely not what you’re most famous for, but you do occasionally play with a pick. You get a really beautiful sound on tunes like “Our Shangri-La.” What is your approach and what is your relationship with the plectrum?

I grew up loving Jimi Hendrix, and when I was playing Hendrix licks, it was quite fun for me to plug into a Bassman or a Marshall and play like that with a pick. But it sounded like somebody else, you know? I do love that sound, though. It doesn’t take very long before it all comes back to me.

Nowadays, if I have a song with those kinds of licks, I’ll probably do them with my fingers anyway. It’s just laziness really. I would always be losing picks. But I do love picks. I also love that sound where I’m playing a Strat or a Gretsch with a pick for the melody but using the whammy bar for the vibrato. You can’t get that sound any other way. That’s how I play all those lovely Hank Marvin Shadows tunes.

For a guy who is so closely associated with the Strat, you get some great Les Paul tones on this record. How do you set the controls?

One of the things that I like to do – and I did this on “Good On You Son” – is to use a Les Paul on the middle setting, but back off one of the levels just a bit, letting one pickup have predominance, and I might roll off the tone a little on one of them. The useful thing about a Les Paul is that you can make those little fine adjustments right on the guitar when you’re looking for the sound.

I’ve always got to remind myself to leave the guitar where it’s at if we’re going to go on a break. Quite often you pick up a guitar and just ram everything up all the way, and you’ll lose that sound. I have to remember not to touch the controls once I’ve found that special sound, that critical place where it’s doing what you want it to do. You’ll never get it back.

You’ve gotten to work with two of your biggest influences, Chet Atkins and Bob Dylan. Did you have moments where you thought, “If my 18-year-old self knew this day would come, he’d be pretty blown away”?

Absolutely. The thrill of being involved with music is about completing those little circuits that connect you to your past. That’s what it was all about. It’s still about that, and it’s endlessly fascinating.

Order Mark Knopfler’s latest solo album, Down the Road Wherever, here.

Exhibiting a diversity of playing styles – including fingerpicking, clawhammering and frailing – on electric guitars and acoustic guitars, Mark Knopfler writes and performs songs that showcase a deep knowledge of folk, rock, and blues idioms.

An important event in his evolution as a guitarist occurred during the mid-‘70s while he was playing with the pre-Dire Straits band Café Racers.

“I was playing a rhythm/lead thing with a plectrum, sort of like [British rock ‘n’ roll guitarist] Mick Green,” Knopfler told Guitar Player in a 1979 interview.

“I used to use a pick until a few years ago, when I started getting more and more involved with playing without one. Then, a sort of synthesis happened between fingerpicking and getting plectrum-type effects by just using my fingers.

“Eventually, I found myself doing things with just my thumb and two fingers that I couldn't do with a pick. But I still use a plectrum now and again for strumming or for playing on acoustic tracks."

Relying on finesse and economy rather than brute force, Knopfler’s distinctive style has influenced the guitar world ever since Dire Straits’ eponymous debut album featuring the standout single “Sultans of Swing” dropped in 1978.

His out-of-phase tone, eccentric melodicism, and extensive use of hammer-ons and pull-offs have inspired countless guitar players throughout the decades.

In the following interview extract from the September 1984 issue of Guitar Player, Knopfler discusses his matchless technique…

You have a very vocal-like guitar style, but it’s not at all like the B. B. King style you mentioned earlier.

Part of the difference, I suppose, would be chucking away the pick when I was evolving my own style.

Style, I find, is always impossible to define, but it's easy to recognize.

What made you start playing lead with your bare fingers?

It just started to happen. I remember sitting in a house in London – starving to death at the time – playing a cheap Japanese acoustic with really light electric guitar strings on it.

I knew then that it was on a turn – it was developing. I was doing things with my fingers that I couldn't do with a pick – really fast things and what have you.

I still love to play with a pick, and sometimes you have to record certain parts or songs with a pick – for instance, “Expresso Love" [from Making Movies].

But it's interesting that now I'm not nearly as comfortable with a pick as I am with my fingers.

Did you go through different stages of developing techniques and experimenting with fingerpicks?

Yes. I went through thumbpicks and even steel fingerpicks with the Nationals, and I dispensed with them.

It's a bit of a disadvantage without them sometimes, because a thumbpick is just great for that chunk thing that Chet Atkins can do so brilliantly.

What does your picking technique consist of now?

It's the thumb and first two fingers, and I tend to anchor with the back or my hand and my other two fingers, so it's a solid base.

Do you pick with your fingernails or with the meat of your fingertips?

It's really from skin, but sometimes the nail will catch. You can use the nail to snap it.

A lot of times, I’ll hit a note with the thumb and second finger together, so it might seem as though I'm pinching the string – squeezing it.

The second finger hits it first I think, behind the thumb, so you can get a real physicality with a note.

Is your tone a product of the type of guitar you play, or is it a result of your picking technique?

I think it's a combination. I like to play all kinds of guitars, not just Strats, but I wasn't getting the sound I really wanted until I got a Stratocaster.

It was about a ‘61 with a rosewood neck. I like rosewood necks a lot, even though I end up playing a lot of maple necks.

Your old Fender Strat used to have the 3-way toggle switch taped so that it would stop in the position between the middle and rear pickups. Why didn't you just get a 5-position switch to achieve the same pickup combination?

I liked the 3-way switch better than the 5-position; it had a better sound. But I kept knocking it out.

I have a 5-position switch on the Strat now. The roadies are always pulling bits out and sticking things in.

Browse the Dire Straits catalog here.

Mark Knopfler’s incredible collection of studio guitars – comprising go-to vintage instruments as well as some lesser-used models for more specific sounds – is hard to beat. 

Here we take a look at six of the Dire Straits man’s favorites…

1. 1937 National Style O Resonator

The guitar that graced the cover of Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms is still used extensively today for studio and live work. It dates to around 1936 or ’37 and has a few details that might not be obvious at first glance, such as the right-hand f-hole, which hides a jack socket for an instrument cable so the guitar’s internal pickup can be used. Due to its position, only right-angle jacks can be used, for obvious reasons.

National’s Style O resonator debuted in 1930 and continued in production until 1942, when demand for resonators was waning during the war years. The Style O came in several cosmetically different variations. Knopfler’s is a Variation 7 model, most of which were issued with a tortoiseshell-style Lucite pickguard, which, as here, was often removed.

2. 1958 Gibson Les Paul Standard

Knopfler has two ’Bursts that get used frequently on recordings and live dates: a 1959 example and this beautiful ’58 that he says is remarkable not only for its tone but also for its rock-solid tuning stability. This ’58 formed the basis for a Gibson Custom replica model that was issued with a long neck tenon, PAF-style custom humbuckers and hide-glue neck construction. Knopfler has recorded using examples from the original run of 100 hand-aged and 150 VOS (Vintage Original Spec) replicas along with the original ’58.

3. 1937 D’Angelico Excel

John D’Angelico, one of history’s most influential archtop guitar makers, built only 1,164 guitars in his lifetime, starting out in a Kenmare Street, New York City, workshop. Earlier pre-war examples of the Excel tend to have less ornamentation than the ones that followed later, so this example does not feature the stair-step tailpiece that became a D’Angelico hallmark from around 1940, nor other art deco–style appointments. The body measures 17 inches across the lower bout. The headstock is topped by classic “pineapple and pediment” D’Angelico ornamentation and sits atop a seriously chunky neck.

4. 2008 Monteleone Isabella

This stunning example of the luthier’s art was custom-built for Knopfler by John Monteleone in 2008 and was subsequently used on a song in tribute to the maker’s skills titled “Monteleone,” from Knopfler’s 2009 album, Get Lucky. The body is built from dramatically quilted, big-leaf Oregon maple, while the top is Adirondack red spruce.

5. 1935 Martin D-18

This vintage Martin is one of Knopfler’s most often used acoustic guitars and was built just three years after the company began making the D-18. An earlier version of this classic mahogany-bodied model had been built as the D-1 beginning in 1931.

6. 2011 “Blue” Pensa Custom

Rudy Pensa has been building custom electric guitars for Knopfler for many years, and this P-90-equipped model with a carved double-cut body is the latest in an evolving series. Knopfler says a thinline double-cut electric by Pensa is on its way to him next.

Browse Mark Knopfler albums here.

Mark Knopfler has has done it all: recorded massive hit records, written critically acclaimed soundtrack work and collaborated with heroes and contemporaries alike. Here's what some of his fellow guitarists had to say about him...

Sonny Landreth

“I was already a big fan before I ever met Mark. Like so many others, I was won over with "Sultans of Swing." When that first came on the radio back in the day, it seemed like it came out of nowhere. The sound was so unique, so different.

“When I was touring the U.K. for my album Outward Bound in 1992, Mark got in touch with my manager and he said he wanted to come to the gig. That’s how we met. After that, he came down to Louisiana and played on some tracks on my next album. Then we went up to Nashville, and I played on his first solo record.

“It’s been a great experience for me, and I’ve learned so much from him. We all love hearing his playing on records and on the radio, but to experience that touch and tone in the same room, through a loud amp, while he’s creating it right there in front of you – man, that’s mesmerizing! It brings you to another level. It ups my game because it’s so inspiring. I instantly find this deeper well that I can draw from.

“The funny thing is, he’s known for his understated lines that just captivate you, but he’s a real badass. In the studio he’ll let loose with riffs that just turn my head around and make me say, ‘What the hell was that?’ But he’s never about being flashy. For him, it’s all about serving the song.

“I think he’s truly the ultimate musician. Think about what he’s accomplished as a guitar player, a singer, a songwriter, a producer and a film score composer. I’ve got friends and people who I admire big time who can maybe do three of those things. But I don’t know anyone else who can do all of them.”

Jason Becker

“The first time I heard Mark Knopfler was on his song “Wild West End.” It gave me instant goosebumps, as everything of his does. His beautiful tone and touch come straight through his fingers from his heart.

“He knows how to inject his soul into a soundtrack like The Princess Bride or a rocker like “Money for Nothing.” Not many people can do that. The two pieces that always get me all emotional are “Wild West End” and “Why Worry.” I would love to work with this heartfelt genius someday.”

Nuno Bettencourt

“He’s probably made the quietest big impact on guitarists, if that makes sense. I wouldn’t want to focus solely on “Sultans of Swing,” but that song really is the epitome of what he does in my mind. I love solos where you can sing every note, like “Hotel California,” where it’s just melody after melody after melody. I feel that way about “Sultans.” Every time it comes on the radio, I can sing every lick, and I look forward to every lick.

“So much of his stuff is that way. It’s about his touch – it’s so tasty. He’s not doing it through aggression or distortion, the way most of us guitarists do. It’s all about dynamics, taste and patience. I think that’s what sets him apart. It takes a lot more to get your message across with a tone like his than by cranking a Marshall. It’s easy to hear a clean sound and think that it might not be that powerful, but with him it really is.

“I would never say that he’s underrated, because his music and his songwriting speaks for itself, but he might be one of the most undercelebrated guitarists. He has all these jazzy tendencies, but he made it pop. He made it singable. He got hits with it. Who gets that kind of guitar playing on the radio? Nobody except him.”

Joe Satriani

“I was sitting down making bracelets at the Liquid Bracelet Factory in Berkeley, California, when I first heard Mark’s guitar coming over the radio. It was 1978, and Dire Straits had just released their debut album. His sound was so pure and fresh, and personal too. It was as if he was sitting right in front of me singing and playing. Fantastic!  I love how you can hear and almost feel his fingertips on the strings as he’s playing. His touch is unmistakable, no matter the amp tone he’s got dialed in. And the vibrato is all his.

“He’s a great writer, singer, communicator, and a master storyteller. In Dire Straits, as a solo artist, with other artists, or with film scoring, you can hear his compositional voice. I like how he gets to the point but somehow takes his time getting there. How does he do that?”

Buy Mark Knopfler's latest solo album Down the Road Wherever here.

Happy birthday to Mark Knopfler!

Multiple Grammy award-winner and one of the greatest guitarists of all time, Knopfler’s lengthy and prolific career includes recording no less than nine solo albums; the same number of soundtrack albums; collaborations with co-legends Chet Atkins and Emmylou Harris; and country rockers The Notting Hillbillies’ Missing...Presumed Having a Good Time long-player.

And that’s before we’ve even mentioned Dire Straits.

Recorded At SARM/Basing Street Studios in Notting Hill, London during early 1978 and released later that year, Dire Straits’ eponymous debut album along with its lead single, "Sultans of Swing" brought Knopfler’s superlative fingerstyle technique to the masses. It also made him an instant guitar hero to many, helping to repopularize the Fender Stratocaster in the process.

Composed on a National guitar, “Sultans of Swing” took a different course after Knopfler acquired his first Fender Stratocaster in 1977, the year Dire Straits formed in London. “It just came alive as soon as I played it on that ’61 Strat,” Knopfler once told Guitar World magazine, “which remained my main guitar for many years and was basically the only thing I played on the first album.”

On the subject of the song’s epic guitar solo, Knopfler comments, “It was just more or less what I played every night. It’s just a Fender Twin and the Strat, with its three-way selector switch jammed into a middle position. That gives the song its sound, and I think there were quite a few five-way switches installed as a result of that song.”

Although Fender didn’t get round to installing the five-way switch as standard on Stratocasters until 1977 (replacing the model’s original three-way pickup selector), it was a popular mod for years prior, helping players achieve a further two pickup options. For many, these unique out-of-phase tones represent the quintessential Knopfler sound.

While the recording showcases a very pure electric guitar tone, by the early '80s Knopfler was using a bespoke-designed live rig masterminded by Pete Cornish – one of the best custom builders in the business and famous for designing similar systems for the likes of Eric Clapton and David Gilmour.

In this classic clip from 1984’s Alchemy: Dire Straits Live (recorded at London’s Hammersmith Odeon on July 22 and 23, 1983) Knopler’s astounding technique can be seen close up as they draw their monumental eight-month Love Over Gold Tour to a climax at home in England.

A masterclass in technique, composition, and style (headband included!) this is undoubtedly one of Knopfler’s greatest moments captured on film.

Get Alchemy: Dire Straits Live here.

Launched in 1981, MTV celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. And for many of us guitar fanatics no other video sums up the 80s MTV Generation as perfectly as Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing”. Musically, lyrically, and visually this Dire Straits classic from 1985 encapsulates it all, primitive computer animation and outmoded politics notwithstanding. 

The song reflects upon a real-life conversation overheard by Mark Knopfler between two men vehemently expressing their mutual disdain for MTV and all it stands for. Taken aback, the guitarist later penned the lyrics to “Money for Nothing” based on the rant. In the video, the grating jealousy and resentment of this pair of macho, cigar-smoking bigots juxtaposes with Sting’s puerile, needy “I want my MTV” falsetto. Meanwhile, the viewer is left somewhere in the middle with Dire Straits who seem far too busy having fun making music to care.

Speaking of which…

Who can forget ‘that’ guitar tone? It sounds like no other. Present yet out-of-phase, crunchy but clear. That mysteriously simple riff is a perfectly balanced set of tonal contradictions that somehow reflects the song’s fragmented lyrical outlook. But how did Knopfler achieve such an elusive sound? It was, as is often the case with so many great moments on record, a bit of a happy accident.

While aiming for a ZZ Top-style tone, Knopfler’s basic guitar sound was achieved by using his fingers (rather than a pick) to play a Les Paul Junior plugged into a Laney amplifier. But the utterly unique timbre of “Money for Nothing” is just as much a product of some fortunate microphone (mis)placement, as Knopfler discovered when he began warming up for the recording session. 

Although the mics were still in the same random position where producer/engineer Neil Dorfsman had abandoned them mid-setup the previous evening, the sound in the control room immediately confirmed they had stumbled upon something special. Indeed, the guitar track required little else in terms of further mixing.

The team later tried to recreate the sound using the same gear, alas to no avail. Despite their best efforts, that particular combination of microphones in that room and on that day – one off-axis, another picking up floor reflections, and another in the room “somewhere else” – captured an unrepeatable magic.

One of the first major releases on CD, Dire Straits’ classic album from 1985 Brothers in Arms contains the track "Money for Nothing" and can be purchased on vinyl from Amazon here

Simply put, this professionally shot video – which was posted to YouTube about eight years ago – shows three guitar masters at work.

It’s an incredible – and purely instrumental – performance of Dire Straits’ “Sultans of Swing" by Tommy Emmanuel (right), John Jorgenson (standing), and Pedro Javier González. They’re backed by Roger Blavia on percussion and Toni Terré on bass.

The clip was directed by Maurizio Ongaro.

As (hopefully) you all know by now, Emmanuel is an Australian acoustic master who graced our pages many times, and the pages of our sister publication, Guitar World, with his “Emmanuel Dexterity" lesson column.

Jorgenson is best known for his work with Chris Hillman’s Desert Rose Band and, of course, the Hellecasters. He has played with everyone from the Byrds to Bob Dylan, Bob Seger, Johnny Cash, the Monkees’ Michael Nesmith, and Bonnie Raitt.

Pedro Javier González is a Spanish flamenco, jazz, and classical guitarist, composer, and producer. He has crossed paths with a wide range of artists, from B.B. King to Paco de Lucia – which is worth noting, since this performance captures something of the vibe of Friday Night in San Francisco, a well-known live album by De Lucia, Al Di Meola, and John McLaughlin.

Feel free to watch the entire clip. However, if you skip directly to 3:48 in the top video, you'll witness an inspired 1988 performance of J.J. Cale's "Cocaine" by Eric Clapton - with an assortment of special guests, including Elton John and Dire Straits' Mark Knopfler - at Japan's Tokyo Dome.

This was during the period when Clapton had turned "Cocaine" into a production, with a long band intro, background singers, a funky bass line, a lengthy keyboard solo, various stops and starts and the addition of the lyric, "ooh, that dirty cocaine."

Luckily, guitar is still at the forefront of the performance. Clapton's solo starts at 5:12.

Unfortunately, Knopfler doesn't solo in this particular version of "Cocaine" - which is only fitting because Clapton doesn't solo in the bottom video, a 1988 performance of "Sultans of Swing" by Dire Straits and Clapton. Knopfler starts his mesmerizing "Sultans of Swing" solo at 4:58.

But watch out for that smooth jazz breakdown at 6:20! Ah, the Eighties, when everyone felt they had to make a production out of everything. Simple and stripped down went out the window. Just compare the production on Clapton's No Reason to Cry (1976) to Behind the Sun (1985). But I digress...