AN ACOUSTIC-ELECTRIC GUITAR MADE FOR MARK KNOPFLER, ADAMAS

MARK KNOPFLER’S FIRST ACOUSTIC-ELECTRIC GUITAR, USED TO RECORD LOCAL HERO

Ordered as a pair with lot 3 in early April 1979, Knopfler’s 6-string and 12-string Adamas guitars became some of his longest serving instruments, still in studio use up to 2022. Following the success of Dire Straits' 1978 eponymous debut album and their debut single 'Sultans Of Swing' hitting number 2 in the American charts by early spring 1979, Knopfler found himself backstage after the band’s gig at the Roxy in Los Angeles on 29 March 1979 chatting to musical hero Bob Dylan, who had come to see the show and swiftly enlisted Mark to play guitar on his next record. Without an acoustic guitar on tour, other than his resonator, Mark apparently placed a swift order with Ovation within a couple of days of this meeting, as the internal labels date the two guitars to 2 April 1979. Knopfler first mentioned the Ovations in an interview for Guitar Player magazine, published in July 1979, but no doubt conducted earlier that April: 'At the present time, Ovation is making some guitars for me. They’re building two custom acoustic Adamas guitars, a 12-string and a 6-string. They have quite an amazing sound, and have a graphite and birch veneer composition top, very thin and very strong, a feature quite different from the Ovations that I’ve come to know. I just asked Ovation to simplify them a bit here and there, because they struck me as being too fancy.' Interviewed for International Musician & Recording World magazine in May 1984, Knopfler elaborated on the design: 'For recording I also use a couple of Ovations, matching 6-string and 12-string Adamas. They’ve got fibre tops and a series of [sound] holes instead of one big one.' The date of the accompanying letter from Loraine Campetti at Ovation Instruments Inc. suggests that the two guitars were shipped to Mark circa 11 April 1979. Campetti writes 'I’m sure you have been patiently awaiting the shipment of your Ovation guitars. Jim and I think the final result is pretty nice!'

A huge fan from his teenage years spent listening to Blonde On Blonde, Knopfler had seen Dylan at Newcastle City Hall on his first electric tour in 1966. Now with a certified platinum album under his belt, Knopfler would be playing lead guitar on Dylan’s 19th studio album, Slow Train Coming. 'It was just great. I loved that period', Knopfler told Mojo magazine’s Phil Sutcliffe in May 1996. 'I remember I hired this old convertible and drove to Santa Monica to run down songs with Bob thinking "This is it, this is really groovy".' Following run throughs in California, recording took place at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama from April to May 1979, with Jerry Wexler producing. 'I was chucked in the deep end fairly quickly', Mark told us. 'I found myself in the studio with Bob, running down songs with him before the band even got there… I just had what I had… and I had this pair of Ovations. There was a 6-string and a 12-string, and they got straight into the album.' Knopfler specifically recalls that he used the 6-string on the track ‘Precious Angel’, a religious love song that was subsequently included on the 2007 anthology Dylan.

While it’s probable that the Ovations were in the studio for acoustic requirements on Dire Straits’ next album Making Movies, the two guitars were definitively photographed at New York’s Power Station studio between March and June 1982 during recording of the band’s fourth studio album Love Over Gold, and the consequent image featured in the Love Over Gold Tour programme to illustrate the guitar gear Mark had used on the album. Before heading out on tour, however, Knopfler raced straight into recording sessions for his first motion picture soundtrack for the 1983 Bill Forsyth film Local Hero at both the Power Station in New York, and the now defunct Eden Studios in London from July to September 1982. 'When I got my Ovation Adamases', Knopfler noted to Guitar Player magazine in 1984, 'I started using them straight away on 'Slow Train Coming' and 'Local Hero'.' Asked whether he played through an amp when recording on an Ovation, Mark explained 'It sounds great direct. I might have an amp out in the studio with a microphone on it, too. On 'Local Hero', we sent the Adamas direct quite a lot.' The 6-string notably features on the instrumental rock track 'Going Home: Theme Of The Local Hero', which was released as Knopfler’s debut solo single in March 1983. Silhouetted against a New York City waterfront sunset, Knopfler is seen playing the acoustic opening strain of the title theme on the 6-string Adamas in the official music video for 'Going Home', the fading sunlight just glimpsing the guitar’s distinctive carved autumn leaf epaulettes. 'I thought I’d have a crack at a film just because I thought it would make life more interesting, and it certainly did', Knopfler revealed in a 2019 interview to accompany the blu-ray collector’s edition of the film. 'I do remember just turning a corner in Manhattan one day and just feeling the theme… I think if you’re born in Scotland and Celtic music or Gaelic music is part and parcel of what you heard from an early age, it’s never too far from the surface.' Knopfler received a BAFTA nomination for Best Score for a Film for his acclaimed work on the soundtrack.

Valued by touring musicians for their built-in electronics and sturdiness, the Ovations came into their own on the road. Following the 1985 release of Dire Straits' record-breaking fifth studio album Brothers In Arms, the band set off on a 12-month world tour that took in 248 sold-out stadium and arena shows in 118 cities across 23 countries. Photographer Brian Aris’ captured a superb shot of Knopfler raising the Adamas mid-performance during tour rehearsals in Split, former Yugoslavia, on 24 April 1985, which would be featured in the Brothers In Arms World Tour programme. Spotlighted on a darkened stage, Knopfler used the 6-string Adamas for performances of the swelling military ballad 'The Man’s Too Strong' on the British and European leg of the tour, which included a two-week residency at London’s Wembley Arena. The first night of the Wembley stint was billed as the Dire Straits Rock Gala in aid of The Prince’s Trust, with special guest Pete Townshend joining the band for the final two songs of the night - 'Solid Rock' and 'Going Home'. A Townshend documentary broadcast on ITV’s South Bank Show in November 1985 featured footage of Knopfler strumming the 6-string Adamas alongside The Who guitarist during a pre-show rehearsal for their performance of 'Going Home'. Although never officially released, the full show at Wembley on 10 July 1985 was recorded for ITV and the concert footage is widely available online. Notably, New Yorker Jack Sonni, who had joined Dire Straits as second guitarist for the whirlwind Brothers In Arms Tour, was seen playing Mark’s 6-string Adamas during afternoon rehearsals for the band’s memorable performance of ‘Brothers In Arms’ at the Sultan’s Pool on the side of Mount Zion in Jerusalem, Israel, on 30 April 1985, which was filmed for a documentary broadcast on the Channel 4 music television programme The Tube on 25 October 1985. Over forty years later, the Ovations were still in use at British Grove Studios as of 2022, played by guitarist Richard Bennett during recording sessions for Knopfler’s tenth solo studio album, expected for release in 2024.

'They were a great pair of guitars for use on the road', Knopfler told us fondly. 'These Ovations, I think, will still be sounding good in two or three hundred years. They served in the front lines, I mean, really well from the very beginning. They’re definitely a pair of old pals.'

OVATION GUITARS
The development of the Ovation guitar was the brainchild of the rotary blade aircraft and aerospace designer Charles Kaman. As an amateur guitarist, he began investigating what modern synthetic materials could be used in guitar construction. In 1964 he instructed a team of engineers at Kaman Aircraft to see what new designs could be achieved, however the first prototypes using synthetics proved disappointing when constructing guitars in the traditional manner with flat backs and bent sides. Understanding the inherent strengths of the parabolic arch in physics, the Kaman designers began experimenting with this shape while working with composite materials. By utilising a bowl-shaped back for the sound-box of the instrument but retaining the traditional flat top of Sitka spruce for the soundboard, they hit upon a combination that produced an instrument that was louder, lighter in weight and stronger than traditional wood guitars. The increased volume, tonal quality and the fact that it was less prone to feedback when amplified made the instruments popular among performing musicians. The incredible strength of these guitars due to the materials and construction techniques predestined them to become the instrument of choice for a hard touring musician. Gone were the days when a guitar would be unpacked only to find a cracked back or neck due to the trials of travel.

In 1968 the round backed Ovation Balladeer gained national attention when the American pop star Glen Campbell performed with one each week on his weekly televised music variety show on CBS. The extensive list of artists who performed and continue to perform on Ovation guitars spans multiple genres over the last fifty years.

Not satisfied with the advancements made, Charles Kaman turned his attention to the soundboard of the guitar. Traditionally made of spruce or cedar, Kaman sought a material that would be stable in all climatic conditions and strong enough to be as thin as needed to supply the required timbre. By laminating a paper-thin birch core between two layers of carbon graphite fibre sheets, he fabricated a soundboard material that could be made as thin as desired and would be stable in all climatic environments. He branded the material Lyrachord. This new material would be the foundation for Ovation's new line of guitars branded the 'Adamas', introduced in 1976. With 'onboard' amplification and equaliser, the instrument supplied a clean and crisp sound on stage and was able to withstand the inevitable abuse incurred in world touring.