Dire Straits legend Mark Knopfler discusses time in Bishop’s Stortford and Harlow on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs

A member of the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame, whose band made one of many best-selling albums of all time, has defined on nationwide radio how Bishop’s Stortford performed a component in his success.

Guitarist and songwriter Mark Knopfler was the visitor on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs on Sunday (August 4), telling host Lauren Laverne all a few half-century in music, together with his time in Dire Straits.

The band, fashioned in 1977, loved big success and noticed 1985 studio album Brothers in Arms go on to promote greater than 30 million copies worldwide. It additionally spawned hit singles Cash for Nothing and Stroll of Life.

And Knopfler informed listeners how his love of blues music grew even stronger because of his common journeys to a Stortford music venue – Rambling Jack’s on the former Railway Resort – throughout his time learning journalism at Harlow School within the late Sixties.

“I used to be already mad concerning the blues and I turned a blues nut,” mentioned Knopfler, who began out as a cub reporter on the Yorkshire Night Publish earlier than deciding to finish an English diploma at Leeds College.

“Once I was at journalism school doing my one 12 months’s coaching down in Harlow, Essex, I used to go to a blues membership each week with out fail. It was in Bishop’s Stortford, in a loft. I noticed a whole lot of the blues bands.

“Additionally, once I was on the paper, I used to go to all of the gigs at Leeds College and on the poly. Per week would by no means go by once I wasn’t at a gig. I realised there was a complete world of acoustic blues music and nation blues music that was earlier than all that.

“I obtained to know this beautiful man in Leeds known as Steve Phillips. He had a Nationwide metal guitar and was a correct blues singer. Steve had a report assortment with a whole lot of the good nation blues artists as effectively.”

These reminiscences from Knopfler, now 74, led to members of the Recollections of Bishop’s Stortford group on Fb recalling the period with fondness.

Commenter Dave Monk even remembered Knopfler returning to the city within the early Nineteen Seventies to play with the band Brewers Droop.

He posted: “Did anybody catch Mark Knopfler on this week’s Desert Island Discs? In addition to mentioning my former employer, Harlow School, the place he studied journalism within the late 60s, he additionally title checked going to the blues membership in Bishop’s Stortford – Rambling Jack’s, run by the late Steve Miller.

“Additionally his membership of pub rockers Brewers Droop obtained a point out, although not his gig taking part in on the blues membership’s successor The Angel Underground (each on the Railway Resort), which I witnessed within the 71-72 period.”

Knopfler took a job as an English lecturer at a school in Loughton earlier than forming Dire Straits in 1977 along with his brother David and John Illsley, who have been all flatmates in Deptford.

Tony Claxton, additionally commenting within the Recollections of Bishop’s Stortford Fb group, mentioned: “I went to the Brewers Droop gigs on the Angel Underground, my common Sunday evening of stay music.

“In all honesty l can’t bear in mind if it was him or the opposite guitarist who performed, I believe he performed a kind of gigs.

“l was working as an editorial assistant on Melody Maker however sometimes did ‘Caught within the Act’ opinions. l assume l did one on Brewers Droop on the Angel. Comfortable days.”

Knopfler talked about his time in Stortford when introducing his fourth disc, Mississippi Fred MacDowell’s Write Me a Few Strains.

He additionally selected tracks by the likes of Ray Charles, Dean Martin, The Shadows and Bob Dylan in addition to deciding on Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Blue Flower as his guide alternative and a guitar as his luxurious merchandise.