But, as Illsley explains, “the problem we had was that we couldn’t get Sultans Of Swing to sound as good as the demo. They were then put into Basing Street Studios to record their debut album, under the auspices of producer Muff Winwood and engineer Rhett Davies. Within two months Dire Straits had been signed by Phonogram.
Now that Sultans Of Swing was on constant rotation, record companies started to take note of this rumbling blues- rock tune about a rotten jazz band.
In those days one person at a radio station could really make a difference.” “On air he said: ‘I’m going to play this until somebody picks this band up,’ which I thought was quite a bold thing to do. “Charlie went absolutely crazy about it,” Illsley remembers. They then took the resulting five- song demo, which included Sultans Of Swing, to Radio London DJ Charlie Gillett. Still desperately seeking a record deal, in July ’77 Dire Straits booked time at a tiny eight-track studio.
And all good songs have a story.” John Illsley “The whole thing is incredibly simple it’s the playing that makes it intriguing. So is Guitar George, who knows all the chords: ‘ But it’s strictly rhythm/He doesn’t want to make it cry or sing/If any old guitar is all he can afford/When he gets up under the lights to play his thing.’ Meanwhile, a small group of youths are fooling around in the corner, ‘ drunk and dressed in their best brown baggies and their platform soles/They don’t give a damn about any trumpet-playing band/It ain’t what they call rock and roll.’ It’s as damp an evocation of thankless 70s publand as you’re likely to hear. Harry’s got a day job, but he’s up there giving it his all. As the rain beats down outside, the band are blowin’ Dixieland. Sultans Of Swing sees Knopfler folding the night’s events into the narrative. And let’s face it, all good songs have a story.” It’s that rolling rhythm on the guitar and a very simple bass and drums approach. The whole thing is incredibly simple, it’s the playing that makes it intriguing. Illsley recalls: “One day he said to me: ‘Remember that song I was fiddling about with the other day? I’ve completely redone the chord structure.’ He played it, and it sounded pretty good. But the song took on a smouldering blues groove after he scrabbled enough money together to buy a 1961 Stratocaster. “The first time I heard Mark playing a version of Sultans Of Swing was in that flat, but the song was completely different.”Įven Knopfler thought it lacked spark. But for casual fans or curious listeners looking for an introduction/sampler, it's the better choice, simply because it covers more ground and contains more music while remaining quite listenable and entertaining.“We were living on next to nothing and weren’t even able to pay the gas bill,” Illsley says, adding that they weren’t called Dire Straits for nothing. Then there are the three hits from On Every Street ("Calling Elvis," "Heavy Fuel," "On Every Street"), all of which are pleasant re-creations of the Brothers in Arms sound a live version of "Your Latest Trick" from On the Night, and, inexplicably, Mark Knopfler's "Wild Theme (Theme from Local Hero)." Fine tunes all, but none of them are reason enough to replace Money for Nothing with Sultans of Swing. A live "Love Over Gold," "Lady Writer," and "So Far Away" replace "Down to the Waterline," "Where Do You Think You're Going," and a live "Portobello Belle," which is really just a trade-off, since they're all equal in quality. Unsurprisingly, it covers much of the same ground as Money for Nothing, containing all the essentials ("Sultans of Swing," "Romeo and Juliet," "Tunnel of Love," "Private Investigations," "Twisting by the Pool," "Money for Nothing," "Brothers in Arms," "Walk of Life"), with the exception of "Telegraph Road," which was left on the earlier compilation. Not quite enough new material for a new greatest-hits album, but it had been years since Dire Straits had released an album of any sort (a compilation of BBC sessions snuck into the stores in 1995) - hence the birth of Sultans of Swing. Dire Straits is not the average band, however, and during those ten years, they released exactly two albums - 1991's On Every Street, their first studio album since Brothers in Arms in 1985, and 1993's On the Night, a live album culled from tapes of the record's supporting tour. A decade is a significant span of time, and the average band would have produced enough material for an entirely different collection, one that shared no similarities with its predecessor. Exactly ten years after Dire Straits' first compilation, Money for Nothing, appeared in the stores, their second, Sultans of Swing: The Very Best of Dire Straits, was released.
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