A GUITAR AMPLIFIER, VIBROVERB-AMP, 6G16

Acquired in 1989, Mark Knopfler used this Fender Vibroverb extensively during recording of the 1990 Notting Hillbillies album Missing...Presumed Having A Good Time, which took place entirely in the miniature home studio of his Notting Hill mews house. According to Ron Eve, Knopfler’s guitar tech from 1986 to 1996, both this Vibroverb and a Fender Vibrolux were always brought to the studio during this period for variety of sound. Likely used for the first Notting Hillbillies tour in 1990, the amp was certainly seen on stage with the Hillbillies during a UK tour in May 1997 and a short residency at Ronnie Scott’s jazz club in London in July 1999.

Photographs by Paul Cox show Knopfler’s Vibroverb in the studio during recording sessions for Dire Straits’ 1991 album On Every Street at London’s AIR Studios in December 1990. No doubt Knopfler tested the Vibroverb before settling on his Vibrolux to record the album’s title track on his Gibson Super 400, as pictured. Enlisted for several session recordings over the years, the amp was used to record Knopfler’s guitar contributions on the 2000 Gerry Rafferty album Another World, the 2011 Chris Barber album Memories Of My Trip - recorded at BBC Maida Vale in 2000, and the 2010 Jimmy Webb album Just Across The River.

Knopfler utilised the Vibroverb for UK promotional radio and television from September to December 2000, ahead of the release of his second solo studio album Sailing To Philadelphia. The amp was last seen on stage for a series of four charity concerts that reunited Dire Straits under the banner ‘Mark Knopfler and Friends’, including three nights in aid of three charities at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London from 23-25 July 2002, and a concert in aid of the Countryside Education Trust at Beaulieu in Hampshire on 28 July 2002.