THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Mark Knopfler’s 10th solo studio album features 12 unhurriedly elegant new songs, with his warm Geordie vocal tone, poetic storytelling lyrics and deft, richly melodic guitar playing all present, correct and as dazzling as ever.
One Deep River offers an unstoppable flow of future Knopfler classics, with their customarily learned lyrics and refined guitar textures. They draw on a lifetime of genre-crossing ingredients and influences in blues, folk, rock and beyond, and as usual, reveal their charms with unhurried grace and depth.
The first single from the album, Ahead Of The Game, is a wistful — perhaps autobiographical — story about a singer-songwriter struggling to make it, set to a distinctively Knopfler-esque classic riff. The title track reflects his deep affection for the river that runs through his childhood home city Newcastle. “Crossing the Tyne is always on your mind,” he says. “It’s what you were doing when you were leaving as a youngster and that feeling is always the same every time you do it. You’re heading out or you’re coming back, and it just connects with your childhood. The power of it doesn’t go away.”
One Deep River was produced by Knopfler and his longstanding collaborator Guy Fletcher, and was recorded at his state-of-the-art British Grove Studios in London. Along with Knopfler on guitars, the album features Jim Cox and Guy Fletcher on keyboards, Glenn Worf on bass, Ian Thomas on drums and Danny Cummings on percussion, Richard Bennett on guitar, and Greg Leisz on pedal and lap steel. Mike McGoldrick provides whistle and uilleann pipes, and John McCusker plays fiddle, while Emma and Tamsin Topolski add backing vocals. All songs are written by Knopfler.
Knopfler is one of the most successful musicians the U.K. has ever produced and is often cited as one of the greatest guitarists of all time. He first came to prominence in the ’80s as leader of Dire Straits, who created many of the signature songs of the era. Knopfler broke up the band in 1995 and set off on a new path as a solo artist. In the ensuing years, he has released nine solo albums of sophisticated rootsy rock and has continued to tour the globe with his band. Over the years, Mark has written the music for several films, including Local Hero, Cal, The Princess Bride, Last Exit To Brooklyn and Wag The Dog and has played and recorded with a number of artists, including Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Emmylou Harris, Tina Turner, Randy Newman and Chet Atkins. Knopfler was made an OBE in 1999 and was given the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award at the Ivor Novellos in 2012.”
