AN ELECTRIC CLASSICAL GUITAR

Mark Knopfler acquired this guitar in 1990 from Ramirez’ then US distributor Gibson to replace the Gibson Chet Atkins CE (lot 5) he had been using for live acoustic performances up to that point. Featured in The Official Mark Knopfler Guitar Styles: Volume I, the caption notes that the guitar has a built-in bridge pickup which is adjustable for individual tone and volume. Knopfler immediately put the Ramirez into use on Dire Straits' epic fifteen-month On Every Street Tour from August 1991 to October 1992, for performances of the fan favourite 'Private Investigations', labelled a 'somnolent musical noir' by British music writer Paul Rees in 2015 (see footnote to lot 5). Photographer Paul Cox captured a few candid shots of Mark strumming his new Ramirez when he joined the band for tour rehearsals at Bray Studios in July 1991. 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.

Twelve years later, Knopfler found that the Ramirez Spanish guitar had the tone that he was looking for when his band assembled at Shangri-La Studios in Malibu, California in May 2004 to record his fourth solo studio album Shangri-La. By this time, Knopfler’s core band for solo recordings comprised former Dire Straits keyboardist Guy Fletcher, with guitarist Richard Bennett and bassist Glenn Worf, both of whom had been with him since the mid-90s. Knopfler used the guitar to record the tracks 'Don’t Crash The Ambulance', the lyrics representing an imagined conversation between a US president and his successor, and the Latin-inflected 'Postcards From Paraguay' – together with his Teisco Spectrum 5 (lot 55). Guy Fletcher photographed Mark 'putting down a Ramirez pass' during week two of the Shangri-La sessions, as seen in his 2004 online studio diaries.