This week, we have the long overdue Cover Wars debut from legendary British rockers Dire Straits. Sultans Of Swing was the band’s first single off their first album, which was self-titled and released in 1978.
In The Fender Stratocaster Handbook: How To Buy, Maintain, Set Up, Troubleshoot, and Modify Your Strat, Mark Knopfler shares how Sultans Of Swing almost had an entirely different melody, funny to think if the song would have still been popular with the alternate structure. Knopfler says no.
I originally wrote Sultans Of Swing on my National steel guitar, open tuned. Same lyrics, but a different tune. Since I can’t remember it, it was completely unremarkable! When I got the Strat and plugged it into an old Vibrolux, it became something else.
Check out the rest of that page over on Google Books for some funny quotes from Mark as he discusses the pros and cons of music theory.
The Contestants:
Agents Of Good Roots: Here’s a blast from the past in the jambands department. Fans of the Dave Matthews Band might remember these guys as the band that Dave shared some stage time with in the mid 1990’s. Source: 2-5-2000
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/agrswing.mp3]READ ON for the scoop on the rest of this week’s contestants…
