A Mark In Time
Mark Knopfler Discussion => Mark Knopfler Discussion Forum => Topic started by: vgonis on December 12, 2011, 02:53:10 PM
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I was reading an article from March 1996 in Q, and I saw that piece of information. Guitar George is a real person. George Borowski. Did you know about it? I don't the rule about putting up a photo of the article, but I can take a photo and send it to anyone interested.
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Nope, he isn't. By his own confession, at about 2:05:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xhxveu_excerpts-from-an-interview-with-guitar-george-borowski_shortfilms
EDIT:
Yes, he is Guitar George, but not THE Guitar George.
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Quite peculiar! On this whole page article, he sort of accepts that he is (or might be) THE guitar George. He also describes a meeting with MK, as a way to elaborate. Maybe MK told him that he is not actually the guy and stop using it? Don't know what to assume. Thanks Jackal!
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Two men say they're Guitar George. One of them must be wrong
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Oh, is he a protest singer, singing a protest song??
;)
LE
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lol, that was real good boys :-)
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I think we came to the conclusion a long time ago on the MK news forum that this guy was an imposter. :lol Pretty funny stuff, especially now that there is video of him basically admitting this himself.
This is pretty much at the same level as the guy (name escapes me) that claimed he wrote "most of the lyrics" to Sultans on a napkin and gave it to MK...or the other guy that went on a long incoherent rant claiming he helped write Money for Nothing. All very funny. :lol
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http://www.amarkintime.org/forum/index.php/topic,405.0.html
Yes, it occurred to me to do a search now! Still quite strange, him building all this myth and admitting to it later on. Must have felt the weight of a heavy lawsuit or something. I have also heard the rumour about Bill Wilson, and SOS, but only half words and hearsay. Anybody can lead me to the full story? By the way, I heard and bought Bill Wilson's "Ever changing minstrel" and some guitar playing is very reminiscent of MK's playing.
And yes we all know about this impostor Sting that claims he wrote half of MFN! ;) But you obviously mean another person and another story that I am not aware of.
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You mean this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36kKAppMSH0
I can't believe people just making things up that are pretty easy to verify.
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Funny what you find on the internet, if you have time to spare! This quote from here: http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=1090
I chose the most controversial, so knock yourselves out. :P
"The "Guitar George" and "Harry" who are mentioned in the lyrics are George Young and Harry Vander, who were guitarists in the band The Easybeats. George Young is Angus Young's older brother and Harry and George helped get AC/DC recorded."
"We did our best to learn more about this, but we could neither confirm nor disprove this entry. If you know more about it, send us a note:
There is a CD which contains 24 tracks which were from a production company which recorded various artists between 1989-1995. One of the tracks was by an artist only identified as "B. Wilson." There was an asterisk after his name and on the CD it says that this was from a live show performed at The Warehouse which was in Indianapolis, Indiana. Before Wilson plays his song he says the following:
"I do this thing I cowrote about, I guess, it's been about 12 years ago I wrote the lyrics and a friend of mine used to work a lot of sessions for my old producer, Bob Johnston, and worked a session with this fellow from England by the name of Mark Knopfler. Has his own group over there called Dire Straits. He had this little melody. It sounded like "Walk, Don't Run." And he had this little story concerning a band that nobody wanted to listen to. Only a few people show up to hear. So we got together one night after the session and tossed these lyrics around on a napkin and I guess I wound up writing most of the lyrics to the tune. made enough money to buy a new Blazer that year I remember, so... didn't do too bad. It goes like this..."
Then he starts playing an acoustic guitar, strumming Spanish style and sings Sultans of Swing. The lyrics are pretty close to what Mark Knopfler recorded but are slightly different. (thanks, JJ - Bloomington, IN)"
"Brooks and Dunn used the guitar riff from the chorus and outro of this song (Sultans of Swing) for their Only in America. To my knowledge this has never been brought up and I don't know if permission was used"
"Trey Anestasio from Phish covered this when he went solo, it was an amazing version i saw it live, He added trumpets as kind of joke ("don't give a damb about no trumpet playin band") They played the whole solo on brass it was amazing, and of course they busted out some guitar solo's too, i would love to have a recording of this."
"Knopfler has sited David Gilmour of pink floyd as an inspiration. some of his solo licks could be taken as complete rip offs, althought his solos are different in a sense."
"It's funny listening to so many people wax poetic about both Sultans of Swing and Knopfler. There's no doubt he's a fine player but he's also a magpie or to put it more politely, he was only VERY HEAVILY influenced by a Van Morrison song when choosing his guitar playing style for SOS. Take a listen to Bulbs on Morrison's 1973 album Veedon Fleece. Mr Knopfler wasn't hit by a rush of brilliant inspiration, more like, 'ehh, I like the sound of that Morrison song, I wonder will anyone notice if I lift it'. As Morrison wrote in one of his songs, 'Copycats ripped off my songs, copycats ripped of my words, copycats ripped off my melodies'... well I'm sure he was tempted to include the line, 'Copycats ripped off my guitar fills'."
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You mean this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36kKAppMSH0
I can't believe people just making things up that are pretty easy to verify.
Yes, that's it. I'd rather not give it anymore attention than that. ;)
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This guy is my favourite though... :o
http://straitjacketmusic.co.uk/ (http://straitjacketmusic.co.uk/)
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I saw Guitar George at some festival in a marquee at some park in Manchester in 1986. It wasn’t a great festival so we left not long after George played. On our way to the bus stop George was leaving & pulled over having recognised us from the gig! He very kindly gave us a lift back to Victoria Train Station. What a lovely bloke he was too! Pretty sure he was the guy who turned up in the Q article mentioned in this thread!
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So much bullshit in this thread!
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I saw Guitar George at some festival in a marquee at some park in Manchester in 1986. It wasn’t a great festival so we left not long after George played. On our way to the bus stop George was leaving & pulled over having recognised us from the gig! He very kindly gave us a lift back to Victoria Train Station. What a lovely bloke he was too! Pretty sure he was the guy who turned up in the Q article mentioned in this thread!
But was his playing strictly rhythm?
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Give a quick scan of this interview and you’ll find that Joe Brown thinks it’s referring to George Harrison.
https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/music/719888/Joe-Brown-For-Just-Joe-George-Harrison-Cockney/amp
A real shame and you think Joe should know better really; being close to Mark etc. Believing it to be a George H makes absolutely no sense within the context of the song.