Mark Knopfler's Second Act

From the jump, it was a rock & roll fantasy. Four working-class guys who came charging into New York, a perfect storm of talent and timing. It was 1979, disco was on the fade (though Donna Summer and Chic still ruled the charts) and punk was on the come, but here was a band that sounded classic, eternal, with the simplicity of an old Sun record and the integrity of jazz, but with the fizz and fun of a senior prom. They were already in their late 20s, long in the tooth for rockers, and in all likelihood that delayed gratification was a lifesaver for Knopfler and the rest of the band. They were a little too old to be subsumed by the tidal wave of adulation, and they had spent enough time learning their craft and scraping together money for the rent (Dire Straits was in itself a reference to their collective poverty) to learn a bit of humility.

The band eventually sold more than 100 million records worldwide. Their 1978 debut made the Top 10 list of every country in Europe, their 1985 song "Brothers in Arms" was the first CD single, and when the MTV era heated up, they were on the leading edge of it — not only did their "Money for Nothing" catch the mania of the new music-video craze, but it was the first video shown on MTV in England.

By the early 1980s, however, Mark's brother David had left the group. In his view, they were always meant to be a cult band. The younger Knopfler, who has gone on to record several solo albums, has said, "I left for the same reasons everyone leaves jobs that are no longer fulfilling their hopes and aspirations. I didn't see myself spending the rest of my life being a strummer for someone else's dreams." Mark is philosophical about the split. "After a short time it became clear to me that David was in the wrong job, going at it as hard as we were. It was a hell of a pace, recording and touring hundreds of gigs. I can't speak for anyone else, but I didn't really know what I was doing, although I was determined to survive it. Everyone has got to really want to be there, and the tough days haven't got to put you off."

But other than that, the band's life was relatively free of turmoil — Knopfler continues to tour and record with former Straits musicians Guy Fletcher and John Illsley. And the audiences just got bigger and bigger. In one remarkable year, they played more than 250 concerts. Gold records piled up, and the band won two Grammys. And then, one day in 1995, Mark Knopfler pulled the plug on the entire enterprise and that was that. "I never expected it to get that big," Knopfler tells me. "I don't really care about making more money at this point. What am I going to do with it? Buy a boat? I don't really want a boat. And I've got a lot of guitars."

Knopfler has always brought the borderline-geeky enthusiasm of a hard-core music fan to his work. In grade school he was mad for the Kinks and got himself into trouble for scrawling "Le Kinks" on his notebooks and desks. As a teenager, he was one of those guys who drank hundreds of cups of coffee, smoked constantly and listened obsessively to Bob Dylan.

"My father bought me a guitar when I was a kid, and I didn't want to hurt his feelings by asking for an amplifier. That's why I played in folk joints, and that turned out to be good for me. I got exposed to a lot of other types of music. The big jigsaw puzzle of music started to take shape. You follow the songs, one song leads to another, and then another. Later on, I learned Bob had been in the same boat I was when he was a kid — with a cheap guitar, no money for an amp, wanting to play with a rock band, but having to play in folk joints.

"There should be a statue of Dylan on each coast of America," he says. "I've been in love with the songs ever since hearing his very first record. I'd go round to friends' houses making them play Highway 61 Revisited or Blonde on Blonde over and over again."