DIRE STRAITS (1978)
Key Tracks: "Sultans of Swing," "Six Blade Knife"
Quick Take: Dire Straits was originally a band, a four-piece whose singer and lead guitarist, Mark Knopfler, happened to do the bulk of the writing. Over time, however, the group slowly became less a unit than Knopfler plus backing players. On one level, this had a certain Darwinian inevitability to it; being both a winningly acerbic tunesmith and virtuoso guitarist, it was only...

Mark Knopfler, dressed in jeans, boots and a black T-shirt, cuts a dark figure in a room that is otherwise all sunlight, polished wood and stainless steel. He is hunched in a chair speaking on his mobile phone to his 20-year-old son, himself a musician. "So many young musicians have no idea what work is," he says in a rich, reassuring baritone. "You know it's not just about talent or wanting to be famous. Music is something you really...