Mark Knopfler - Get Lucky
List Price:
Our Price: $12.50
You Save: $6.48 (34%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $9.94 (click here)
Category: Music CD
See more new music releases
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store
Canadian Music Store
Music CD Cover
Artist: Mark KnopflerEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
CD Release Date: 2009-09-15
Music Label: Warner Bros.
Soundtracks:
- Border Reiver
- Hard Shoulder
- You Can't Beat The House
- Before Gas And TV
- Monteleone
- Cleaning My Gun
- The Car Was The One
- Remembrance Day
- Get Lucky
- So Far From The Clyde
- Piper To The End
Free Music Notes for Get Lucky
Free Music Review: 'I have become a bit of a veteran at this music thing' -- and it shows in every gorgeous note
Hit: 5 Stars
"I'm writing too many songs, and then I have to put them out --- I'm sorry," Mark Knopfler said at the start of what seems like our annual phone call.
But if Knopfler is going to make CDs like 'Get Lucky', he can call me every few months --- these eleven songs are completely original short stories and character sketches, set against music by one of the planet's greater guitarists. That the quality is uniformly high is no surprise.
What did take me aback --- and what will make fans of Dire Straits and Knopfler's previous solo releases shake their heads --- is that Knopfler seems to have assembled this CD without regard for the commercial marketplace. Nothing that says "automatic Top 10" jumps out at you like 'Punish the Monkey (Let the Organ Grinder Go)' from 'Kill to Get Crimson' or 'Boom Like That' from 'Shangri-La'.
The likely result: The guy whose band sold 120 million records has made a CD that will be appreciated mostly by hardcore fans --- and the smallest cohort of music lovers: smart, literate grownups.
An unwillingness --- or is it an inability? --- to compromise. A curiosity, at 60, about songwriting that explores new personal territory. A concern, in all things, for authenticity. You don't have to talk to Mark Knopfler long before you realize that these are bred in the bone. Listen:
Jesse Kornbluth: Three words: Dire Straits reunion.
Mark Knopfler (audible sigh): These days, it does seem to be the style. But putting the brakes on when I did [he disbanded Dire Straits in 1995] was right. I'm happy with the way things are.
JK: We're talking about the easiest $300 million you'll ever make!
MK: I'm looking to do more of what I do --- improve my recordings and playing the new music live, enjoying the variations that brings.
JK: At a conference, I heard Steve Jobs quote The Beatles: "You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead." I hear that idea running through your new CD. There's a lot of life experience --- people on the far side of young love, lost comrades, memories of a distant childhood.
MK: The road ahead --- yes, it's a different picture. I have become a bit of a veteran at this music thing, so there's some of what made me. One song, 'Cleaning My Gun', is from the vet's viewpoint, the survivor's viewpoint. I've made a couple of notes where it's possible to tell you the background of some of the songs. But I try not to interfere too much or explain. I don't want to spoil the songs for you; I'd prefer that it's going to be what you want it to be.
JK: In 'Remembrance Day', you sing the names of those --- war dead, it seems --- now under the "earthen roof". Are they men you knew?
MK: It's just a list of boys. It begins with a cricket team. In a lot of communities, cricket teams and football teams --- and in America, baseball teams --- were the kids who went to war.
JK: That's the closest you come to social criticism on this CD. There's no wry, angry song like "Punish the Monkey". Is Knopfler mellowing?
MK: The older I get, the more grouchy I become. I have some equally disagreeable friends who are walking partners with me in the morning. We get most of our bile out then. By the time I get home, I feel better.
JK: I think of a Bruce Springsteen CD that, according to his manager, had no obvious hit single. Bruce went home and dashed off 'Dancing in the Dark'. And the entire world bought 'Born in the USA'. In contrast, I fear that 'Get Lucky' will be under-appreciated because it's merely gorgeous.
MK: It does occur to me I need to have someone like that.
JK: I see you have one concert scheduled this month --- then your schedule looks blank until May of 2010. This can't be.
MK: I'm trying to work out a way to pop over to America and do Prairie Home Companion or Letterman, just by myself. And there will be a tour from April to July.
JK: Didn't Dire Straits once do 250 concerts in a year?
MK: When you're young and in a band, it's like you have a football under your arm ---- you're running. But some of that is running away.
JK: Fender has just launched the Mark Knopfler Stratocaster. Do you use it or just endorse it?
MK: I play it on stage instead of my old one. It works better. It has all the things I specified: a rosewood finger board, nice big smooth frets. Other owners seem to like it too.
JK: Michael Jordan wore a new pair of Nike shoes every night. Do you have more than one Knopfler Strat?
MK: I can make a lot of money for charity by playing one at an event and then selling it. So I'll generally be using a new one....
JK: I see your high standards as an affront to our rapidly deteriorating culture. They reassure those of us who care about these things that we're not alone, not crazy. In that sense, "Get Lucky" is a comfort. Can you relate?
MK: There's been an erosion, and not just in the United States. It becomes more important for people who regard themselves as having the ability to discern and feel to stand tall.
JK: So market-directed music....
MK: I'm sorry. Those words are meaningless to me.
'Get Lucky' is Exhibit A.
Get Lucky Poster
This is the sixth solo studio album from the legendary musician and follows 2007's highly successful Kill To Get Crimson, which Rolling Stone heralded as 'a gem' and USA Today described as, '...yet another unpretentious showcase for his unmistakable gifts as a musician, tunesmith and storyteller.'Recorded at Knopfler's award-winning British Grove Studios in West London, Get Lucky was co-produced with longtime collaborators, engineer Chuck Ainlay and keyboardist Guy Fletcher and featured Richard Bennett, Danny Cummings, John McCusker, Matt Rollings and Glenn Worf. The 11-track album explores a lifetime of musical roots exemplified by the title track. 'The first itinerant person I ever met would sing in soul bands in winter, then work part-time in fairgrounds or 'go pick fruit down south' when the weather turned warm,' explains Knopfler. 'I was about 15 years old, stuck in school and envious. 'Get Lucky' came from him and other traveling characters I went on to meet in places I'd find myself working short-term, like farms, warehouses, building sites, before I got lucky with my songs.'
Folk Music CDs
Music Genres
Top music charts in Folk Music CDs
Margie Adam - Another PlaceRelease date: 1994-07-26; Music CD
Best price: $11.99
Price in other shops:
Ann Reed - Road of the HeartRelease date: 1994-06-29; Music CD
Best price: $29.99
Ann Reed - Back & ForthRelease date: 1994-07-26; Music CD
Best price: $2.00
Price in other shops:
Kay Gardner - Rainbow PathRelease date: 1994-07-26; Music CD
Best price: $12.75
Price in other shops:
Joanne Rand - Grant Me EyesRelease date: 2001-08-02; Music CD
Best price: $9.96
Price in other shops:
Betty - Hello Betty!Release date: 1994-03-21; Music CD
Price in other shops:
Kay Gardner - AmazonRelease date: 1994-07-26; Music CD
Price in other shops:
Stage 2: Human HeartRelease date: 1997-04-11; Music CD
Best price: $14.95
Price in other shops:
Cyntia Smith, Ruth Barrett - Heart Is the Only NationRelease date: 1996-07-17; Music CD
Best price: $96.66
Giants! A Colossal Collection of Tales and Tunesby Jim Weiss
Greathall Productions, Inc.; Greathall Productions; Published: 1996-11-01; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $8.68
Price in other shops:
Top Rated Albums
Emmylou Harris, Mark Knopfler - Real Live Roadrunning (with DVD)Release date: 2006-11-14; Music CD
Best price: $16.71
Price in other shops:
Chet Atkins, Mark Knopfler - Neck and NeckRelease date: 1990-09-24; Music CD
Best price: $4.92
Price in other shops:
Mark Knopfler - One Take Radio SessionsKNOPFLER,MARK; Release date: 2005-06-21; Music CD
Best price: $4.79
Price in other shops:
Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris - All the RoadrunningKNOPFLER,MARK; Release date: 2006-04-25; Music CD
Best price: $6.97
Price in other shops:
Mark Knopfler - Golden HeartKNOPFLER,MARK; Release date: 1996-03-26; Music CD
Best price: $4.74
Price in other shops:
Mark Knopfler - The Ragpicker's DreamKNOPFLER,MARK; Release date: 2002-10-01; Music CD
Best price: $4.57
Price in other shops:
Mark Knopfler - Shangri-LaKNOPFLER,MARK; Release date: 2004-09-28; Music CD
Best price: $4.42
Price in other shops:
Mark Knopfler - Kill to Get CrimsonRelease date: 2007-09-18; Music CD
Best price: $5.54
Price in other shops:
Dire Straits, Mark Knopfler - Best Of Dire Straits & Mark Knopfler: Private Investigations (2CD)DIRE STRAITS; Release date: 2005-11-15; Music CD
Best price: $12.77
Price in other shops:
Mark Knopfler - Sailing to PhiladelphiaRelease date: 2000-09-26; Published: 2000; Music CD
Best price: $4.30
Price in other shops: