Taking the Raven’s Path

Mark Knopfler is not busy chasing the music world and whatever is in favor at any given moment. He’s never operated within parameters or had to draw people in and appeal to the masses. Nimble-fingered and slick-handed, he’s focused on following the raven’s path, being true to who he is and finding out who he’s supposed to be by traveling the road to self-knowledge.

The well-traveled craftsman prefers to be situated wherever the song takes him, from writing room to rehearsal space, intimate recording studio to crowded concert hall. It’s been an interesting ride for Knopfler, who no matter what he is playing or whom he is playing with does so with a skill and a dedication that has earned him an enviable reputation among his peers and listeners. Indefatigable and inquisitive, he is still on the pursuit of some musical truth, similar to, said Knopfler in a press release, “the 45s of Ricky Nelson and Lonnie Donegan, or the playing of Hank Marvin and Duane Eddy,” influences that sent him down a path that led to 125 million record sales.

Taking his musical faith in yet another direction, Knopfler returns from a three-year hiatus with the release of Down the Road Wherever, his ninth solo album. The album re-lives and breathes the artist’s past, featuring 14 new songs inspired by a wide range of thickly autobiographical subjects,  including Knopfler’s early days in Deptford with Dire Straits, “a stray soccer fan lost in a strange town, the compulsion of a musician hitching home through the snow, and a man out of time in his local greasy spoon diner,” according to a press release.

His enthusiasm and willingness to embrace personal authenticity is the key strength in this art. His stories offer listeners a window into who he is. The story of his life – the challenges, the struggles, the joys, the people he’s known and loved – it’s all there. Beauty, love, emotion, mystery, the human condition. This bluesy-rock n’ roll amalgam conveys the sublime, the eternal, the timeless. Indeed, Knopfler once again proves that he can still manage to create some tight music and a multitude of sounds and wonders.

On Down The Road Wherever, Knopfler channels a world of ideas and experiences into a sound all of his own. Its enthusiasm in contagious. Knopfler produced the record with former Dire Straits keyboardist Guy Fletcher, and recorded it with Fletcher and Jim Cox on keyboards, Nigel Hitchcock on saxophone, Tom Walsh on trumpet, John McCusker on fiddle, Mike McGoldrick on whistle and flute, Glenn Worf on bass, Ian “Ianto” Thomas on drums, and Danny Cummings on percussion.

Some of the album’s gems include the quintessentially Knopfler “Back On The Dance Floor,” an eminently listenable jam with big chords on the keyboard and sung with a witty, rousing, vocal majesty. On songs such as “Nobody’s Child,” his vocals are rife with heartbreak and rapture, sung in a style that only strengthens the desperation of the lyrics. The album is buttressed with that special theatrical magic that allows moments of truth telling. Knopfler is more than able to render experience precisely in an enveloped album that balances the realism of the tales with the fantasy-quality of his seasoned vocals.