Knopfler

Were you hittin' the bottle again there bud?  

 

Hell, we apparently put bands who have done nothing more than string together a bunch of riffs into Prog Metal.  Certainly there's a place in Prog Folk for Knopfler.

 

Look at it this way.  Progressive rock consists of musicians who stretch the boundaries of what is rock.  How about those who choose to work within its confines, and yet still manage to stretch and even redefine what is?

 

 

 

 

Also, please clarify who you are proposing, Dire Straits, Mark Knopfler's solo career, or David Knopfler.

 

Dirty Dick is still in search of Little Nell (i.e., Knopfler is not sufficiently recognized here, hence still in search of legitimacy).  However it's what it is.

 

We've been down the Dire Straits road, which is apparently a dead end.  However the soundtracks and solo career are certainly worthy of prog folk.

 

Give me a couple of hours.  Let me dig into the discography and list the reasons why.

 

But as an example, how many rock stars (which Knopfler surely was at the time) choose to begin their first solo album with a nice little folk melody, played on whistle, Irish harp, accordion, bouzouki, and violin?  It's nothing fancy, nothing that wouldn't be right at home on a Fairport album, and powerful and moving in its simplicity. 

 

Plus, his songs get banned in Canada

 

 

 

 

 

 

But here is one example, of a folkish/countryish duet with Emmylou Harris (it was Gillian Welch providing the female vocals on the album track).  Notice how it begins as a relatively pleasant song, nice enough, a little bluegrass around the edges.  But there are melodic hints dropped throughout as to at what it will become as it evolves.  The song takes a solid turn around 3:30 into it, where it morphs into a vehicle for a fine, mini-symphonic Knopfler solo, ramping up considerably around 4:30.  By 5:15 in, Kopfler is hitting on all cylinders.