Throughout his career he used many guitars that defined his music. Before some days ago we shared the second part of Mark Knopfler’s Electirc Guitars – and today we want to introduce you to five other guitars that also were very important to Mark’s Dire Straits and solo career.
Here are five electric guitars that Mark used through his amazing career filled with a lot of beautiful songs which later became music classics and we listen to them till today.
1. 1985 Schecter Stratocaster
This guitar Mark started to use sometime in 1985, and it was put together by John Shur who at the time worked at Rudy’s Music Stop in New York City and doing mostly just guitar repairs. The guitar featured white finish on Schecter-made Stratocaster-style body, and a Schecter neck – shaped and styled after an original 1961 Fender Stratocaster neck.
Shur used Dunlop 6110 frets and used an original Fender vintage-style tremolo bridge. Mark used this guitar during the “Brothers In Arms – Tour” in 1985 and 1986, and he kept using it during the “On Every Street – Tour” in the 1990. Also Mark was seen a couple of times with this guitar on his solo tours.
2. 1984/85 Steinberger GL2 Standard
This was guitar that Mark played on the song “Money For Nothing” during the last parts of “Brothers In Arms – Tour” in 1986. Mark’s GL2 was finished in black and features one piece of body-neck, EMG 60 humbucker in the bridge and EMG 81 in the neck, also was equipped with a TransTrem vibrato system which was big deal back in the day.
3. 1988 Pensa-Suhr Custom
For these guitars from Pensa-Shur Custom, we did one post about the Story how Mark met with Rudy Pensa and how they started to make guitars for him. It was really interesting story and if you want to know more about that story, you can read it here.
But this Pensa-Shur 1988 was a project from the first Knopfler-Pensa meeting, and they agreed on the details, sketched the guitar and sometime in 1988 the guitar was finished. The guitar is built by John Shur who worked at Pensa Custom in that time and the whole model was adapted the Mark Knopfler’s needs.
However this is one amazing guitar and especially expensive, but if you are professional musician you probably know how powerful this guitar is. Mark used it and played on this guitar in 1988 for Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday concert. But because Dire Straits in that time haven’t been on tour for some time, this concert was good fresh energy for their fans and of course for the whole band. First time when Mark ever picked up this guitar was at the event at Hammersmith Odeon on June 8th 1988.
This guitar was one of Mark’s main in the late 80s and early 90s – used extensively during the On Every Street tour. Since then Mark grew accustomed to fatter necks of his Gibson Les Pauls, and eventually stopped using this guitar altogether.
4. 1987 Pensa-Suhr Prototype
One more Pensa guitar in Knopfler’s collection of guitars is Pensa-Shur Prototype from 1987. With this guitar Mark was actually seen using it in 1987 during the studio session of “Let It Be” with Ferry Aid group. But Mark used this guitar first as a guest guitarist on Eric Clapton’s 1987 Tour, and later on Vic and Ray 1996, and 1999 tour with Notting Hillbillies.
However this guitar has a lot of similarities with the orange guitar so it is possible that this model was used as a building ground.
5. 1953 Gibson Custom Super 400 CES
Mark used this guitar on “Fade to Black” and “On Every Street” album from the 1991, and also live on Your Latest Trick. This Gibson guitar is absolutely amazing, beautifully and can blend in music and songs of Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler style. The guitar have blonde finish, archtop desing, and two Alnico V pickups.
First Super 400 was built in 1934 and it was named after it’s price of $400, and if you want to know that price how it would be for today’s value it would be around $7,000. This guitar as popularized by Scotty Moore, who played a 1963 model in Elvis Presley’s stage performance, but the model of this guitar that Mark has, it was built sometime in 1953.
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