Mark Knopfler

Mark Knopfler's ninth solo studio album features unhurriedly elegant new songs inspired by a wide range of subjects, including his early days in Deptford with Dire Straits, a stray football fan lost in a strange town, and the compulsion of a musician hitching home through the snow. Mark has a poet's eye for telling details that infuse his songs with his unique psychogeography.

Starting with his own unlikely beginnings in Middle England, John Illsley recounts the rise of Dire Straits from humble origins in London's spit-and-sawdust pubs to the best-known venues in the world, the working men's clubs to Madison Square Garden, sharing gigs with wild punk bands to the Live Aid stage at Wembley until, ultimately, the shattering demands of touring on a global scale and living life in the spotlight took their inevitable toll.