Dire Straits mastermind Mark Knopfler raised over $11 million when he auctioned off 123 of his guitars and donated a quarter of the proceeds to charities.
While 28 of the axes sold for over $100,000, a 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard with a sunburst finish smashed records as it went for $876,000.
But Knopfler couldn't let go of all his guitars — he’s already detailed a few of those too-good-to-lose instruments with Guitar Player.
Now he’s revealed that one other electric guitar stayed in his possession amid the charitable clearout: a blonde Gibson ES-330. He acquired it accidentally through a swap, and it’s a guitar that stays glued to his side when he's in the studio.
“Tony Joe White gave me his blonde Gibson 330 that he used for 'Rainy Night in Georgia',” Knopfler says in the latest issue of Guitar World. “We’d become pals, and Tony had switched to a Strat, and I was ’round at his house playing one day.”
The swamp rock guitar legend ,White is best known for that 1967 cut, which became more widely known when R&B singer Brook Benton covered it three years later and had a hit.
Knopfler says he’d given White an acoustic guitar as a present, and White wasn’t going to let his generosity go unnoticed.
“He reached under the sofa and pulled out this dusty old case,” Knopfler remembers. “And he says, ‘Mark, I want you to have this guitar. I don’t play it anymore.’”
If White's words didn’t make the state of the neglected guitar clear enough, the site before him did. He talks of a “sweat-pitted” fingerboard that had “shell shapes between all the frets.” Reluctantly, he took the guitar, but it was in desperate need of some TLC.
“I said, ‘I can’t take this, Tony.’ And he said, ‘Hell, take it; I don’t want the damn thing.’
"So I put a new fingerboard on it, and I’m never without that on a recording session,” he says.
Introduced in 1959, Gibson’s ES-330 semihollow model is overshadowed by its older brother, the ES-335, which had arrived earlier. Unlike the 335, which features a pair of humbuckers and a centerblock, the 330 has two P90 pickups and is fully hollow. Loyalists include Slim Harpo, the late swamp blues guiatrist, who was honored in 2021 with a signature ES-330.
Knopfler considers himself one as well.
“I love that guitar,” he says with pride. “Actually, in a lot of ways, I’d rather have a 330 than a 335 because the P90s are such wonderful pickups.”
His affection for the guitar – clearly a potent blend of its history, sentimentality, and sonic prowess — meant he couldn’t see it go last year, but that doesn’t mean he was happy to see others go.
“When you’re saying goodbye to that ’83 Les Paul and that Schecter Tele [it hurts],” he confesses, before putting on a brave face. “But it’s fine. You’re not going to sit and play all those guitars. It’s time to thin it out a bit. Give them another home. Let them be played by other people.”
That’s exactly the mindset that Jeff Beck’s widow, Sandra, had when she sent his collection of guitars, amps, and beyond to the auction block earlier this year. A similar figure, $10.7 million, was raised — including $1.3 million for his infamous Oxblood Les Paul — and, as per Sandra’s wishes, the guitars have fallen into the hands of other players.
Lenny Kravitz's foil Craig Ross has already been the benefactor of the auction, having been loaned Beck's $490,000 Yardburst Les Paul for a full European tour back in April.
Knopfler has been on the campaign trail to celebrate 40 years of Dire Straits’ legendary Brothers in Arms LP, on which he made a surprise confession about the best guitar solo he’s ever written. Spoiler, it isn’t “Sultans of Swing.”
He’s also said he’s “gotten away with murder” over the years, deeming himself a bang average player, despite those quick to label him as a guitar god.
