This past weekend I broke out some vinyl circa 1978/79. Dire Straits debut came on the scene during a time there wasn’t much on the radio that even remotely sounded the same. Comedian Steve Martin once said something to the effect, “be so damn good you’re impossible to ignore.” Mark Knopfler and his band did exactly that when they hit the scene. I never met anyone who didn’t tip their hat to the, as Rolling Stone rock critic Ken Tucker described, the “inescapable hook” of Sultans of Swing and Knopfler’s Dylanesque vocals.

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