Age, Biography, and Wiki
Mark Knopfler was born on August 12, 1949, in Glasgow, Scotland, to a family that later moved to England. His early life and exposure to music laid the foundation for his future success. Knopfler's biography is marked by his distinguished career with Dire Straits and his successful solo endeavors. For more detailed information, his Wikipedia page provides a comprehensive overview wikipedia page.
| Occupation | Country Singer |
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| Date of Birth | 12 August 1949 |
| Age | 76 Years |
| Birth Place | Glasgow, Scotland |
| Horoscope | Leo |
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Height, Weight & Measurements
While specific details about Mark Knopfler's height and weight are less frequently discussed, his focus has always been on his music and creative pursuits.
One night, while spending time with friends, the only guitar available was an old acoustic with a badly warped neck that had been strung with extra-light strings to make it usable. Even so, he found it impossible to play unless he finger-picked it, leading to the development of his signature playing style. He said in a later interview, "That was where I found my 'voice' on guitar." After a brief stint with Brewers Droop, Knopfler took a job as a lecturer at Loughton College in Essex – a position he held for three years. Throughout this time, he continued performing with local pub bands, including the Café Racers.
In 1989, Knopfler formed the Notting Hillbillies, a band at the other end of the commercial spectrum. It leaned heavily towards American roots music – folk, Blues and country music. The band members included keyboardist Guy Fletcher, with Brendan Croker and Steve Phillips. For both the album and the tour Paul Franklin was added to the line-up on pedal steel. The Notting Hillbillies sole studio album, Missing...Presumed Having a Good Time was released in March 1990, and Knopfler then toured with the Notting Hillbillies for the remainder of that year. He further emphasised his country music influences with his 1990s collaboration with Chet Atkins, Neck and Neck, which won three Grammy awards. The Hillbillies toured the UK in early 1990 with a limited number of shows. In this low-key tour the band packed out smaller venues such as Newcastle University.
Also in 2002, Knopfler released his third solo album, The Ragpicker's Dream. In March 2003 he was involved in a motorbike crash in Grosvenor Road, Belgravia and suffered a broken collarbone, broken shoulder blade and seven broken ribs. The planned Ragpicker's Dream tour was subsequently cancelled, but Knopfler recovered and returned to the stage in 2004 for his fourth album, Shangri-La.
In addition to his work in Dire Straits and solo, Knopfler has made several contributions to country music. In 1988 he formed country-focused band the Notting Hillbillies, with Guy Fletcher, Brendan Croker and Steve Phillips. The Notting Hillbillies sole studio album, Missing...Presumed Having a Good Time was released in 1990 and featured the minor hit single "Your Own Sweet Way". Knopfler further emphasised his country music influences with his collaboration with Chet Atkins, Neck and Neck, which was also released in 1990. "Poor Boy Blues", taken from that collaboration, peaked at No. 92.
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Dating & Relationship Status
Mark Knopfler has been married three times and has five children. His personal life is often noted for its stability and dedication to family, alongside his professional success.
His mother was a teacher and his father was an architect and a chess player who left his native Hungary in 1939 to flee the Nazis. Knopfler later described his father as a Marxist agnostic.
The family moved to Knopfler's mother's hometown of Blyth, near Newcastle, in North East England when he was seven years old. Mark had attended Bearsden Primary School in Scotland for two years; both brothers attended Gosforth Grammar School in Newcastle.
Originally inspired by his uncle Kingsley's harmonica and boogie-woogie piano playing, Mark soon became familiar with many different styles of music. Although he hounded his father for an expensive Fiesta Red Fender Stratocaster electric guitar just like Hank Marvin's, he eventually bought a twin-pick-up Höfner Super Solid for £50.
Dire Straits' first demos were recorded in three sessions in 1977, with David Knopfler as rhythm guitarist, John Illsley as bass guitarist, and Pick Withers as drummer. On 27 July 1977, they recorded the demo tapes of five songs: "Wild West End", "Sultans of Swing", "Down to the Waterline", "Sacred Loving" (a David Knopfler song), and "Water of Love". They later recorded "Southbound Again", "In the Gallery", and "Six Blade Knife" for BBC Radio London—and, finally, on 9 November, made demo tapes of "Setting Me Up", "Eastbound Train", and "Real Girl". Many of these songs reflect Knopfler's experiences in Newcastle, Leeds, and London, and were featured on their first album, the eponymous Dire Straits, which was released in the following year: "Down to the Waterline" recalled images of life in Newcastle; "In The Gallery" is a tribute to a Leeds sculptor and artist named Harry Phillips (father of Steve Phillips); and "Lions", "Wild West End", and "Eastbound Train" were all drawn from Knopfler's early days in the capital.
Knopfler has been married three times, first to Kathy White, his long-time girlfriend from school days. They separated before Knopfler moved to London to join Brewers Droop in 1973. Knopfler's second marriage was in November 1983 to Lourdes Salomone. Knopfler and Salomone have twin sons, who were born in 1987. Their marriage ended in 1993. On Valentine's Day 1997 in Barbados, Knopfler married British actress and writer Kitty Aldridge, whom he had known for three years. Knopfler and Aldridge have two daughters.
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Net Worth and Salary
As of 2025, Mark Knopfler's net worth is estimated to be $105 million. This wealth is primarily attributed to his work with Dire Straits, his solo music career, and his contributions to film scores such as "The Princess Bride" and "Wag the Dog" .
A charity event in 2007 went wrong: a Fender Stratocaster guitar signed by Knopfler, Clapton, Brian May, and Jimmy Page, which was to be auctioned for £20,000 to raise the money for a children's hospice, was lost when being shipped. It vanished after being posted from London to Leicestershire, England." Parcelforce, the company responsible, agreed to pay £15,000 for its loss.
Business and Investments
Mark Knopfler's business ventures include music production and collaborations with other artists. His net worth also benefits from royalties and licensing agreements related to his extensive music catalog.
Mark Freuder Knopfler OBE (born 12 August 1949) is a British musician. He was the lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of the rock band Dire Straits from 1977 to 1995, and he is the one of the two members who stayed during the band's existence, along with the bassist John Illsley. He pursued a solo career after the band dissolved, and is now an independent artist.
After graduating from the University of Leeds and working for three years as a college lecturer, Knopfler co-founded Dire Straits with his younger brother, David Knopfler. The band recorded six albums, including Brothers in Arms (1985), one of the best-selling albums in history. After Dire Straits disbanded in 1995, Knopfler began a solo career, and has produced ten solo albums to date. He has composed and produced film scores for nine films, including Local Hero (1983), Cal (1984), The Princess Bride (1987), Wag the Dog (1997) and Altamira (2016). He has produced albums for Tina Turner, Bob Dylan, and Randy Newman.
In 1963, when he was 13, he took a Saturday job at the Newcastle Evening Chronicle newspaper earning six shillings and sixpence. Here he met the poet Basil Bunting, who was a copy editor. In 2015, Knopfler wrote a track in tribute to him.
Their third album, Making Movies, released in October 1980, moved towards more complex arrangements and production, which continued for the remainder of the group's career. The album included many of Mark Knopfler's most personal compositions, most notably "Romeo and Juliet" and "Tunnel of Love", with its intro "The Carousel Waltz" by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, which also featured in the 1982 Richard Gere film An Officer and a Gentleman. There were frequent personnel changes within Dire Straits from 1980 onwards, with Mark Knopfler and John Illsley the only members to remain throughout the group's 18-year existence. In 1980 whilst the recording sessions for Making Movies were taking place, tensions between the Knopfler brothers reached a point where David Knopfler decided to leave the band for a solo career. The remaining trio continued the album, with Roy Bittan from Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band guesting on keyboards and session guitarist Sid McGinnis on rhythm guitar, although he was uncredited on the album. After the recording sessions were completed, keyboardist Alan Clark and Californian guitarist Hal Lindes joined Dire Straits as full-time members for the On Location tour of Europe, North America, and Oceania.
Following the tour, Knopfler took some time off from the music business. In 1993, he received an honorary music doctorate from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Two more Dire Straits albums were released, both live albums. On the Night, released in May 1993, documented Dire Straits' final world tour. In 1995, following the release of Live at the BBC (a contractual release to Vertigo Records), Mark Knopfler quietly dissolved Dire Straits and launched his career as a solo artist. Knopfler later recalled that, "I put the thing to bed because I wanted to get back to some kind of reality. It's self-protection, a survival thing. That kind of scale is dehumanizing." Knopfler would spend two years recovering from the experience, which had taken a toll on his creative and personal life.
Continuing a pattern of high productivity through his solo career, Knopfler began work on his next studio album, entitled Get Lucky, in September 2008 with long-time bandmate Guy Fletcher, who again compiled a pictorial diary of the making of the album on his website. The album was released on 14 September the following year and Knopfler subsequently undertook an extensive tour across Europe and America. The album met with moderate success on the charts (much of it in Europe) reaching No. 1 only in Norway but peaking in the Top 5 in most major European countries (Germany, Italy, The Netherlands). The album peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard European Album chart and at No. 5 on the Billboard Rock Album chart.
Knopfler was estimated to have a fortune of £75 million in the Sunday Times Rich List of 2018, making him one of the 40 wealthiest people in the British music industry.
Social Network
Knopfler maintains a relatively low profile on social media, preferring to focus on his music and personal life. However, he is active on platforms where he shares updates about his music and upcoming tours.
During the 1960s, he formed and joined several bands and listened to singers like Elvis Presley and guitarists Chet Atkins, Scotty Moore, B. B. King, Django Reinhardt, Hank Marvin, and James Burton. At the age of 16, he made a local television appearance as part of a harmony duo, with his classmate Sue Hercombe.
In 1968, after studying journalism for a year at Harlow College, Knopfler was hired as a junior reporter in Leeds for the Yorkshire Evening Post. During this time, he made the acquaintance of local furniture restorer, country blues enthusiast and part-time performer Steve Phillips, one year his senior, from whose record collection and guitar style Knopfler acquired a good knowledge of early blues artists and their styles. The two formed a duo called "The Duolian String Pickers", which performed in local folk and acoustic blues venues. Two years later, Knopfler decided to further his education, and later graduated with a degree in English at the University of Leeds.
Mark Knopfler also took part in a comedy skit (featured on the French and Saunders show) titled "The Easy Guitar Book Sketch" with comedian Rowland Rivron and fellow British musicians David Gilmour, Lemmy from Motörhead, Mark King from Level 42, and Gary Moore. Phil Taylor explained in an interview that Knopfler used Gilmour's guitar rig and managed to sound like himself when performing in the skit.
Knopfler collaborated with George Jones on the 1994 The Bradley Barn Sessions album, performing guitar duties on the classic J.P. Richardson composition "White Lightnin'". He is featured on Kris Kristofferson's album The Austin Sessions, (on the track "Please Don't Tell Me How The Story Ends") released in 1999 by Atlantic Records.
In January 2024, more than 120 of Knopfler's guitars and amps were sold at auction in London for a total of more than £8 million, 25 per cent of which will be donated to charities. Included in the auction was the 1983 Les Paul used for hits like "Money For Nothing" and "Brothers in Arms." Knopfler expressed his desire for the instruments to find loving homes and hopes they will be played rather than stored away.
Education
Mark Knopfler studied English at the University of Leeds, where he graduated before pursuing a career in journalism and eventually music. His early educational background laid the foundation for his storytelling skills in songwriting.
Upon graduation in 1973, Knopfler moved to London and joined a band based in High Wycombe called Brewers Droop. This group had issued studio-recorded material before Knopfler joined, and went into the studio while Knopfler was a member -- but Brewer's Droop material with Knopfler remained unissued until appearing on their 1989 archival album The Booze Brothers.
