AN ELECTRIC ARCHTOP GUITAR, SUPER 400 CESN

Of the three Super 400s Mark Knopfler acquired in the mid-1980s from Pete’s Guitar in St. Paul, Minneapolis, this CESN model with Alnico pickups was his favourite, used periodically on stage and in the studio through to the mid-2000s. 'I love these,' Knopfler told us. 'I used the Super 400 with the Hillbillies and then subsequently on things like 'Fade To Black' with Dire Straits… But these old Alnico pickups are fantastic. I don't think they ever got anything quite like these Alnicos.'

It’s probable that Knopfler first used this guitar during recording of the 1990 Notting Hillbillies album Missing...Presumed Having A Good Time, which Q magazine called 'an album of vintage acoustic blues by artists such as Lonnie Donegan, The Delmore Brothers, Jesse Fuller and Charlie Rich.' The Notting Hillbillies formed by accident when Knopfler, knackered from two years of recording and touring Brothers In Arms, reunited with his two old finger-picking pals Steve Phillips and Brendan Croker for a pub gig in 1986 and decided to make an album. Brought in to control the Synclavier, keyboard player Guy Fletcher completed the quartet. 'I've always been in love with country music,' Knopfler told Dave Zimmer of BAM in 1990, 'particularly country music with a little swing, a little blues mixed in.' Employing an assortment of vintage instruments, the foursome worked on the record for eighteen months in the home studio of Mark’s Notting Hill mews house from mid-1988 to late 1989. Guitar tech Ron Eve recalls that all three of Mark’s Super 400s (see the next two lots) were present in the studio from time to time during this period. Released in March 1990, the album was followed with a short UK tour.

Having officially disbanded Dire Straits in 1988 and leaning heavily into American roots and country collaborations in the interim, Knopfler now felt the pull to reform the band for one more album, assembling the core quartet with a medley of session musicians at London’s AIR Studios from November 1990 to record On Every Street. The Super 400 would feature heavily during recording of Dire Straits’ sixth and final studio album, as well as in publicity and live performances. Knopfler used the electric archtop to record the tracks ‘Ticket To Heaven’, ‘My Parties’, the jaunty B-side ‘Kingdom Come’ and the jazzy ‘Fade To Black’, telling Guitar Player magazine that he credited the guitar’s Alnico pickups with his low-key, smoky tone on the latter. 'Originally it was a Rolling Stones kind of thing,' he continued. 'That wasn't making me happy, so I changed the chords right around and put the Super 400 on. Everybody just played, and I sang and played. We never changed the vocal, the guitar, anything. That's an untouched recording.' The “twangy” arpeggio theme heard on the second half of the album’s title track was also down to the Super 400. 'Yeah, I used a pick for that,' Knopfler told Guitar Player, explaining 'I played an old Super 400 with Alnico pickups through a [Fender] Vibrolux with the tremolo on. That's genre. You've got to love all that crap, haven't you? [Laughs].'

Numerous unpublished photographs by Paul Cox appear to capture Knopfler recording the title track at AIR Studios that December - showing the Super 400 plugged into a Vibrolux exactly as described - as well as tour rehearsals at Bray Studios, Berkshire, in July 1991. In addition, an array of studio publicity portraits by both Cox and Deborah Feingold pictured a pensive frontman clutching his expansive yet elegant vintage archtop, and would be used for the album inner sleeves, tour programmes and other promotional material, as well as an advertising campaign for tour sponsor Philips. Throughout the epic fifteen-month On Every Street Tour, which ran from August 1991 to October 1992, Knopfler strapped on the Super 400 for performances of ‘Your Latest Trick’ and ‘Fade To Black’. According to tech tour notes, this guitar was also assigned to the songs ‘Twisting By The Pool’ and Brownie McGhee’s ‘Rainy Rainy Day’, in readiness for their potential addition to the set list. The shows at Les Arenes in Nîmes and Feyenoord Stadium in Rotterdam in May 1992 were recorded and released on the 1993 live album and VHS concert film On The Night.

The Super 400’s “plummy jazz sound,” as referenced in The Official Mark Knopfler Guitar Styles, made it a popular choice for session recordings through the early noughties, which would include the tracks ‘Dallas Rag’, ‘Next Time I’m In Town’, and ‘Blues Stay Away From Me’, at BBC Studio 3 Maida Vale on 1 July 2000 for the 2011 Chris Barber album Memories Of My Trip; Jools Holland's 'Mademoiselle Will Decide', with vocals by Knopfler, for the 2001 album Jools Holland's Big Band Rhythm & Blues; the Hank Williams’ song 'You Win Again', with vocals by Knopfler, for Jools Holland’s 2006 album Moving Out To The Country; and Elvis Presley’s ‘Don’t Be Cruel’ and ‘Rock And Roll Ruby’ with Scotty Moore, D.J. Fontana, Jools Holland and John Paul Jones, the former with vocals by Bryan Ferry, the latter by Knopfler, at Abbey Road Studios on 7 May 2000, for the 2001 compilation album Good Rockin' Tonight: The Legacy Of Sun Records. The recording session for ‘Rock and Roll Ruby’ was filmed for an episode of the PBS documentary series American Masters, which aired on 28 November 2001 and was subsequently released on DVD in October 2002.

When Knopfler performed the Elvis songs ‘Blue Moon of Kentucky’ and ‘Baby Let’s Play House’ at a concert-style tribute for Elvis’ guitarist Scotty Moore at London’s Abbey Road Studios on 2 December 2004, he selected the Gibson Super 400 as a nod to the guitar legend who had played a huge role in popularising the model by playing it with Presley in the 1960s. The one-off concert was filmed and released on DVD in 2005 as A Tribute To The King. After many years of memorable use, Knopfler acknowledged that the guitar was slightly big for him, conceding 'I ended up going for something a little smaller, but what a fantastic guitar.'

THE GIBSON SUPER 400
The style Super 400 was introduced by Gibson in 1934 and was at the time the pinnacle of archtop guitar design. So named for its $400 price tag, the guitar was coveted by jazz and big band musicians for the volume of sound it produced - measuring a full 18 inches in width, it was the largest, loudest, and most expensive guitar in the Gibson catalogue. By 1952 the guitar was offered in an electric version, the Super 400 CES.