Download A lot of people went to last year’s Mark Knopfler/Bob Dylan tour expecting a warm-up act reheated from the Eighties, and left thinking Dylan should have reduced his contribution to the show. They were caught off guard by the former Dire Straits frontman’s thoughtful musicianship and genuine soul.
Relieved to shrug off the Dire Straits brand in 1995, Knopfler has relaxed
into an admirable solo career of low-key country blues. His seventh solo
outing is a backwoods ramble through two discs of the rootsy Anglo-American
sounds in which Knopfler is now (mostly) so comfortable. There’s old-timers’
country, roadhouse blues, a Tom Waitsian piano ballad and yearning Celtic
pipe.telegraph
One of Knopfler’s skills is to write melodramatic folk lyrics then deliver
them like he’s leaning against a petrol pump. Yon Two Crows is a grim
shepherd’s tale, while Redbud Tree finds him “pledged” to a tree “as to my
only one”. Some of the noisier blues are cheesy, but, in the main, this is a
warm, authentic and durable record: the musical equivalent of a well-worn
plaid shirt.
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