WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE

As he releases One Deep River, Mark Knopfler reflects on the guitars he's loved, the music that keeps his passion youthful... and how he'd like a do-over on that Dire Straits Rock Hall induction.

- GARY GRAFF

"I STILL STOP AND LOOK in a guitar shop window when I pass one on the street. I can't walk past it," Knopfler confesses via Zoom from his home in London. "And all the clichés - nose up against the glass, that whole thing. I suppose there were a lot of years where, instead of music being music and songs being a dream a kid's dream - it became work. It becomes your life. And I'm not alone there.

"So I have to try hard to keep it 'teenage' to stay the kid about it. It's an endlessly fascinating thing to be part of. And it goes on. History goes on."

2016 GIBSON CUSTOM SHOP MARK KNOPFLER '58 LES PAUL STANDARD PROTOTYPE

This is the first prototype of the guitar based on Knopfler's original 1958 'Burst, which remains in his keeping. It was used to record "Janine" on One Deep River and to perform "Money for Nothing" and "Going Home" on tour in 2019.

And this year Knopfler, now 74 and more than 45 years onward from his first album with Dire Straits, is adding a few chapters to his history.

There was his January guitar auction, a somewhat shocking sale of 123 instruments through Christie's that netted more than $11 million, including $100,000-plus for 28 of them and a record $876,000 for a 1959 Vintage Gibson Les Paul Standard with a sunburst finish. That was followed by a new version of his 1983 film composition "Going Home: Theme of the Local Hero," which Knopfler and longtime wingman Guy Fletcher turned into a benefit single for Teenager Cancer Trust in the U.K. and Teen Cancer America, using a who's-who roster of guitar-playing mates and other all-stars, including what is thought to be the final recording by the late Jeff Beck.