Artist: Mark Knopfler
Album: Down the Road Wherever
Label: British Grove/Universal/Virgin EMI
Release Date: 11.16.2018
Mark Knopfler is one of those instantly identifiable modern music giants whose importance can seldom be understated. Since his days as frontman with Dire Straits, he has always delivered zinging, ringing fretwork with a twist of his own spell of musical magic at its very core. In recent years, as a solo artist (this marks his ninth solo effort), he has moved steadily away from the fiery, furious fretwork of his Dire Straits days, to deliver a positively more thoughtful, roots and folk-style approach. With his latest, Down the Road Wherever, featuring fourteen self-written tracks, Knopfler again turns his introspective eye and ear back to the world of roots music, a fertile area where he himself draws his own personal strength and reflective interests clearly live.
Backed by many of his usual musical buddies, including Guy Fletcher on keys, John McCusker on fiddle, and Irish wizard Mike McGoldrick on whistle and flute, he is also joined by Imelda May, Scotland’s Kris Drever, and the ever-soulful, Beverley Skeete, on his latest project. The result is a delight, an album that again sparkles with Knopfler’s eye to detail, his story-telling lyricism, melodic magic, and downright original, vital fretwork, always an outstanding, masterful masterclass in itself.
The album’s title comes from one track, a line from his song, “One Song at a Time,” a tribute in its understated way to the late legendary Nashville picker and old buddy of Knopfler, Chet Atkins, and provides a near-perfect example of just how to produce a memorable, meaningful lyric that seems to echo personal thoughts and deep admiration at one and the same time. A truly delightful release, rippling with Knopfler’s own musical stamp, stature and charisma.
—Iain Patience
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