A SOLID-BODY ELECTRIC GUITAR, LES PAUL STANDARD CUSTOM SHOP REISSUE

MARK KNOPFLER’S 'BIRTHDAY' LES PAUL

A gift from Gibson Custom Shop, this one-of-a-kind guitar was delivered to Mark Knopfler in late 1985 with a very special feature – the serial number was matched to his date of birth, 12/8/49. With its distinctive striped figuring, the custom reissue became known as the “Tiger” top among Mark and his crew. When recounting his ‘Gibson story’ to guitar guru Tony Bacon for Gibson.com in 2002, Knopfler recalled ‘I carried on with that [80s] Les Paul for quite some time [lot 10], and then Gibson’s Custom Shop made me [this] one a couple of years later.'

The guitar did not make it onto a record until almost a decade later, when Knopfler returned to the studio in the mid-90s to work on his debut solo studio album. Written and recorded over a two-year period, with sessions in Nashville, London and Dublin, Golden Heart would be released in 1996. Knopfler used the “Tiger” top to record the songs ‘Rüdiger’, ‘Darling Pretty’, and the bonus track ‘What Have I Got To Do’, which was released as a B-side to the album’s third single ‘Rüdiger’. Although Knopfler had written the lyrics to ‘Rüdiger’ fifteen years earlier after the death of John Lennon, it was only during the Golden Heart sessions that the melancholy music and lyrics came together. Introducing the song during a preview for the Golden Heart Tour at BBC Television Centre in London on 15 April 1996 for a Later… With Jools Holland special, Mark revealed: ‘I was touring with the band in the early days when John Lennon was murdered and I was being pestered by this very odd German guy in a raincoat, specs, and briefcase, who would be at the airport when you arrived, be at your hotel, then at the place where you were playing – he’d be there. His name was Rüdiger and I wrote this song about him. He was an autograph hound.’ The album’s lead single ‘Darling Pretty’ was about ‘new beginnings, I suppose,’ said Mark in the official album documentary, ‘there’s a touch of that, it has that feeling of movement, of intention.’ With the acoustic backing of his old Notting Hillbillies bandmate Brendan Croker, Knopfler used this guitar for a mellow performance of ‘Rüdiger’ on the German television show Geld oder Liebe, broadcast on WDR on 2 November 1996 and currently available to view on Knopfler’s official YouTube channel.