A Mark In Time
Mark Knopfler Discussion => Mark Knopfler Discussion Forum => Topic started by: Leprechaun on January 09, 2010, 04:05:07 PM
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On Guy's page it has been told that there is a version of "Private Dancer" (which MK wrote for Tina Turner) sung by Mark himself. Recorded during the LOG sessions (early 80s).
Anyone ever heard that version? I couldn't find any mp3 on the web or is it on some of the "Rare Sessions"-albums. I doubt that it will be released in the future. What a shame as it is such a brilliant song! I really would like to know if the former Straits label Vertigo / Phonogram or Randor Music has a copy or mastertape of it.....
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And you are not going to find it...
There is a demo recorded by DS as there is many many demos of songs that we don
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I can remember reading or hearing an interview a few years ago when MK talks about the Dire Straits version of Private Dancer. He says there is probably a tape out there somewhere with it on, but doesn't know, and he hopes it never surfaces. Its a shame as it would be interesting to hear.
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The article was at knopfler.net but this website is not available and offline during latest year.
Turner, Tina and Loder, Kurt. (1987) "I, TINA". Published by Penguin Books, London.
[This chapter is about Tina Turners LP/CD 'Private Dancer'. We come in when they are telling us about the title tune].
"Davies [Tina Turners manager, Roger Davies] next contacted another pal, Ed Bicknell, manager of the wildly popular Dire Straits and of Paul Brady, a singer unknown in the US but nevertheless much admired by such American songwriters as Bob Dylan. From the Brady catalog, Bicknell offered Davies a powerful socio-political rock tune called 'Steel Claw'. Unfortunately, he said, there were no spare Dire Straits compositions lying around. And Mark Knopfler, the group
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. So Mark offered to let me use the band to record it - and to do 'Steel Claw', too, since some of them had played it with Paul Brady before: two more songs and a band as well.
A very clear sentence that tells me who is and always was the boss... And that it never was a real "band" in the sence of the word - although MK would have never confirmed it. Like a car or a tool... no offence meant of course. But a friendly gesture of MK also to offer an own song for this reason. And he seems to be quite helpful when help is asked for. And another thing: I am not sure if Private Dancer would have sounded really great with Mark
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I wonder if that book makes any reference to the next Dire Straits (with Knopfler) contribution to his next record "Breaking every rule" in "Overnight sensation" (wrote by MK) and "Paradise is here" (by Paul Brady).
Or the Knopfler appearence in "Foreign affair" in 1989 (I think it was that year) as he was friend of Tony Joe White (the composer of that song).
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If not given to Tina this song could have surfaced on one of the solo MK album with different melody as it happened before for other songs.
If one day an anthology see the light maybe we will be allowed to hear the difference.
I remember watching a doc on TV about Tina and was suddenly blown away by the few bars of Steamy Window that Tony Joe White played on his dobro. His rough guitar/voice only version sounded much better to my ears than the state of the art recording made by Tina.
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If not given to Tina this song could have surfaced on one of the solo MK album with different melody as it happened before for other songs.
If one day an anthology see the light maybe we will be allowed to hear the difference.
Since we are talking about Mark Knopfler, I think is very unlikely something like that happens :(
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Since we are talking about Mark Knopfler, I think is very unlikely something like that happens :(
See my other answer...on other thread
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Since we are talking about Mark Knopfler, I think is very unlikely something like that happens :(
See my other answer...on other thread
Quite bad on following threads, please give me more clues, hehehehe ;D
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Since we are talking about Mark Knopfler, I think is very unlikely something like that happens :(
See my other answer...on other thread
Quite bad on following threads, please give me more clues, hehehehe ;D
http://www.amarkintime.org/forum/index.php?topic=988.msg18011#msg18011
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I've read more than once that MK considers that Jeff Beck guitar on Private Dancer as the worst guitar he ever heard.
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Didn't he say second worst? ;) :)
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Didn't he say second worst? ;) :)
He did
To me, that's never seemed to be limiting in terms of sessions. I like to play a lot of different styles of things on sessions. On Tina Turner's new album, she recorded a song I wrote called ,,Private Dancer," and she got the whole Dire Straits band to play on it, but I was busy doing the Bryan Ferry sessions. So she got Jeff Beck to play the second ugliest guitar solo you've ever heard on it.
Whats the first I wonder?
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I guess it was Mark's one as there are only two existing solo, live version excepted.
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I am sure it was MKs humour - suggesting that JBs was better than his although his wasn't anything special - however he could be also suggesting that the song didn't warrant a solo and that it was only there simply because it was Dire Straits.
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I think MK really meant that he didn't like the solo. I've never liked it, anyway. I guess the plan was that MK should play lead on the whole song, like on the rest of the LOG-songs, and the solo, of course.
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I think MK really meant that he didn't like the solo. I've never liked it, anyway. I guess the plan was that MK should play lead on the whole song, like on the rest of the LOG-songs, and the solo, of course.
Me too, I mean he's joking about it, but it's clear that he really doesn't rate the solo. Let's face facts - it's a terrible solo. If they had hired some unknown session guitarist and he had played that they would have wiped the tape and picked up the phone. But because it's Jeff beck he can play any old crap and they will be going "Ooh Jeff, that was fantastic, just what the track needed."!
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I've never though Jeff Beck was that good a player anyway!!
I've heard Tina say in an interview "You should hear Mark's original version, its so beautiful" so that says it all, I feel this track with Mark on it is the holy grail for Dire Straits fans, the one track that no-one seems to own or even heard.
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I don't think JB would be on many peoples list of top guitarists of all time. I don't think many would even consider him actually!
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Just in: on Google search: Simon Sweetman "Blog on the Tracks" http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/blogs/blog-on-the-tracks/3294741/The-worst-guitar-solo-in-the-world
from the article
The worst guitar solo in the world
Last updated 09:06 05/02/2010SharePrint Text Size 77 comments
Late last year I asked you all to name ONE guitar solo that you placed above others. We got a pretty good list happening (even if most of you couldn't quite limit yourselves to just one selection).
I know Friday tends to be the easy-going, form-a-list sort of day. But after posting this yesterday (about Will Hodgkinson's book Guitar Man) I heard a snatch of the Tina Turner song Private Dancer. And that triggered a fairly recent memory...so, stick with me...
The song Private Dancer, as many of you will know, was written by Mark Knopfler - and when I interviewed him last year he told me the song was ruined due to "them drafting in Jeff Beck to play the world's second ugliest guitar solo".
I didn't include that bit in the finished piece but I liked the line. I assumed that there was probably some sour grapes from Knopfler there; he had missed out on playing on that track but most of Dire Straits worked on the Turner album.
Telling a friend about the Knopfler interview, a week later, he wondered why I didn't ask Mark what he thought the world's worst guitar solo was.
It would have derailed the interview - and, more important, I kinda liked not knowing. In a way I thought Mark Knopfler captured it by calling the solo the "second worst". It leaves room for a new worst to be decided. Or for the worst to be so bad that it is never replaced. Either way, it suggests the worst is unspeakably bad (you don't even want to know!) and it possibly is better not knowing. It also seems somehow crueller calling something the second worst. I think?
I figure you can take this phrase and make it your own. Calling something the "second worst" is basically the new worst thing. So, to use it in a sentence - and this is just an example off the top of my head - I might say that Midnight Youth is the second worst band currently working in New Zealand.
It leaves room...
Jeff Beck is all class - or very nearly all class - as far as I am concerned. But you know what? Listening to Private Dancer on the radio yesterday I realised that Mr Knopfler was quite valid in what he was saying. Beck's solo on that song is pretty disgusting; it doesn't go anywhere and when you finally recognise the, erm, Beck-isms, the solo is done. It suffers too for the recording techniques of the time. It doesn't stand up well in this day and age.
I'm not saying it's the second worst guitar I've heard - that would probably be Zakk Wylde playing with Ozzy Osbourne at the failure that was Rock 2 Wgtn a couple of years ago.
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Bloggers. Lots of words. Leading to nothing. I like more the way Mr. Pottel does posting: Not more syllables than necessary..... ;D
LE
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Great find Marie!
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yup, interesting read
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Thank you Marie and also knopfling (on another thread). I enjoyed reading! :)
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sorry read the other thread before seeing this (more thorough) one!!!
JBs solo is awful, and i`ve always been inclined to think Mark meant what he said, and that it wasn`t a humorous `He`s great` type remark!
Like many virtuosos, JB is an acquired taste better appreciated live than listened to on record.
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I can never understand 'cameo' roles on recordings. Did it really need JB to play on it? No. In fact some of the worst session artists could have made a better job. Was he there to help sell the record? Probably yes. The same thing happened on Meatloaf's Bat Out Of Hell 3 album. Brian May (one of my all time fav rock guitarists and one of the nicest people you could meet) was drafted in to play a few bars of his howling guitar on Bad For Good. It was unmistakably a Brian May sound but it didn't need him to play it. I could have made the same recording given the effects that were so obviously applied to it. it wasn't anything special other than it was Brian May. Why? Album sales spring to mind! Sad really but probably true.
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I can never understand 'cameo' roles on recordings. Did it really need JB to play on it? No. In fact some of the worst session artists could have made a better job. Was he there to help sell the record? Probably yes. The same thing happened on Meatloaf's Bat Out Of Hell 3 album. Brian May (one of my all time fav rock guitarists and one of the nicest people you could meet) was drafted in to play a few bars of his howling guitar on Bad For Good. It was unmistakably a Brian May sound but it didn't need him to play it. I could have made the same recording given the effects that were so obviously applied to it. it wasn't anything special other than it was Brian May. Why? Album sales spring to mind! Sad really but probably true.
That said, MK has made some really great "cameo" appearances over the years.
I don't think there's any question that Jeff Beck is a brilliant guitarist. If you can, try to track down his collaboration with Les Paul "Good News". Great playing. And the "whammy bar" stuff he plays these days is pretty amazing really.
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Mustang Sally on Buddy Guy's "Damn Right I've Got The blues"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COTchg91cv4
I hope that Mark will never mention that one as an answer to "so what was the n