Mark Knopfler and the difficulty of collaborating with Bob Dylan

It often happens that the encounter with one’s own myth, often idealized, turns into a human disappointment, but when this myth is called Bob Dylan The disappointment is always compensated by his skill as an author and poet.

“It’s enough to make you want to retire to anyone who writes songs.” So he sentenced Mark Knopfler Remembering the difficult role of disk manufacturer “Infidels“Bob Dylan, an artist that the guitarist has always seen (and still sees) as a hero.

“I was strongly influenced by him at the age of 14 or 15,” Knopfler said to director Dan Forte in an interview published in the September 1984 issue of Guitar Player. “I have listened to Bob Dylan since the time of ‘Hard Rain’. I still think it’s a great and” Blood on the tracks “is one of my favorite records”.

Bob Dylan called him in 1983 to produce the album that saw the return of Mr Zimmerman to secular music after three songs of songs inspired by the Christian faith to which he had approached.

It was not the first time that the two crossed their path. The English guitarist had contributed, playing the guitar, to “Slow Train Coming“Of 1979, the first album of the” Christian trilogy “. Knopfler was called for what was demonstrated in the debut album of the debut of the Say straits of 1978 containing the “Sultans of Swing” hit.

The role of producer came after Dylan had “discarded” the hypothesis of relying on David Bowie or Elvis Costello or Frank Zappa. Choices that can be read as the desire to change its musical approach and its sound. However, at that moment Dylan was also looking for someone more “fresh” and skilled on the technology of the engraving rooms.

When Knopfler came to the Power Station Studio in New York City, in April 1983, he already found almost everything “set” and immediately understood that he would not be the one who would lead the sessions, but to direct them through Dylan’s will.

At the beginning of the work, what would then become a Nobel Prize had already chosen the band members. In particular, for the rhythmic section the bass player caught Robbie Shakespeare and the drummer Sly Dunbar, a duo known as Sly & Robbie Which had also produced artists such as Black Uhuru, Wailing Souls and Grace Jones.

Dylan had also chosen the former Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor. The two had met the previous summer and the American singer -songwriter had already started to “show him” his new songs.

Knopfler in addition to playing the guitar flanked by Taylor to the slide, involved the keyboard player Alan Clark And the engineer Neil Dorfsman, with whom he had already worked.

“I suggested Billy Gibbonsbut I don’t think Bob had heard of the Zz Top“, Knopfler said in the 84 interview in Guitar Player.” It would have been fantastic to do it with Billy. “As Knopfler, he would soon find out, working with his hero was far from simple. The memories of engineer Dorfsman on the sessions also confirm this.” I don’t want to use the wrong word, but Bob was also a bit of a provocateur agent, or even a sabotler, ” said Dorfsman to UNCUT magazine.

In the end Knopfler was frustrated because everything was going differently from how he had imagined. “I know that Mark was very, very annoyed by the fact that the choices of the songs were a bit dictated and turned out to be different from how we thought we would have done,” said Dorfsman. “I could hear Mark snort when he realized that for this record the role of the manufacturer was not the traditional one. I am sure that for Mark it was very frustrating.”

Knopfler has never made a secret of his dissatisfaction and admitted him in the interview with the director of Guitar Player who asked him if it had been difficult to produce Dylan. “Yes. In the role of manufacturer you have to do with people who work in different ways, and it is good for you. You have to learn to adapt to their way of working”. “Sometimes it has been strange with Bob. One of the beautiful things of the production is that it shows you that you must be flexible. Each song has its own secret, different from another and each has its life. Sometimes this meaning must be pulled out, while other times it can arrive quickly. There are no laws on songwriting or on production. It depends on what you are doing, not only on with who you are working on. You must be sensitive and flexible. Disciplined as a writer of texts, as a poet.

Knopfler of that album was struck in particular by the song “I and i“of which the first verses was moving:” It has passed so much time since an unknown woman slept in my bed / looks at as gently sleeps, as her dreams must be free / in another life she must have possessed the world or having been faithfully married some right kings that wrote psalms next to streams illuminated by the moon “.

“Feeling the first verses of ‘I and i’ is sufficient to make anyone want to retire to anyone writing songs,” Knopfler said in the interview. “It is stunning. Bob’s musical ability is limited, in terms of the ability to play a guitar or a piano,” he explained. “He is rudimentary, but does not affect his variety, on his sense of melody and his way of singing. It is all there. In fact, some of the things that sounds on the piano while singing are delicious, even if rudimentary. All this shows that it is not necessary to be a great technician.” “It’s the usual story – Knopfler concluded.” If something is played with the soul, this is what matters. My favorite records, in principle, are not wonderful technical creations, with the exception of perhaps people like Chet Atkins. But in general just listen to an album by Howlin ‘Wolf. It is simply soul “.