AN ACOUSTIC GUITAR, MARTIN SIMPSON MODEL

Mark Knopfler acquired this acoustic guitar during a visit to luthier Stefan Sobell’s Northumberland workshop on 19 February 2013. 'I was talking to Stefan Sobell about building me a guitar,' Knopfler told us, 'and he came up with this thing. I turned up at his place in Northumberland and I thought… THAT was the one. I really did think it was - because it’s a fantabulous guitar.' Sobell recounted the visit on his website: 'Today Mark Knopfler visited. He played a New World and two Martin Simpson models, eventually choosing one of the MS models. He said he plans to use it at home and for recording, so didn’t want a pickup fitted. And he wouldn’t let me fit strap buttons because he couldn’t bear to have holes drilled in the guitar.' Interviewed by Jamie Dickson for Guitarist in April 2015, Knopfler mentioned that he had been playing a couple of acoustics at home to get them ‘played in’ a little bit: 'One is a Stefan Sobell flat-top guitar. It’s a beautiful guitar and you’re conscious that to be worthy of a thing like that you’ve got to play it. So I pick that up and try and play it a little bit. It’s like getting a guitar from John Monteleone or something. You’ve got to play it in to try to bring it on, which is what I’ll try to do every now and again.'

By 2018, Knopfler had decided he wanted to play the Stefan Sobell on his forthcoming tour and called in the luthier to make the necessary modifications. Sobell reported: 'Mark Knopfler didn’t want a pickup in his MS Model when he collected it from me a couple of years ago... More recently he asked me to fit a pickup so he could play it live. So I took a tool kit to his amazing state of the art studio in Chiswick and fitted a Highlander pickup there. Mark was seriously impressed with the combination of the MS Model and Highlander, was very happy with the amplified sound. He told me he planned to use it in live concerts, so I also fitted a strap button to the guitar heel.' Knopfler would use the guitar for performances of the song ‘Matchstick Man’ on his Down The Road Wherever Tour from April to September 2019 in support of his ninth solo studio album. Knopfler told the Big Issue in November 2018: 'Matchstick Man… describes me looking down on a vision of my young self, setting off on his adventure. It’s a real memory – it was Christmas Day, it was snowing, and I was trying to get home. And I still had a long way to go. It was a moment when I was saying to myself, well, this is what you’ve chosen to do. You take the good and the bad. There are times when I’ve been tested but the desire has remained. The love for the guitars, and for the music.'

Most recently, Mark used the guitar to record the song ‘Watch Me Gone’ during 2021-2023 sessions at British Grove Studios for his tenth solo studio album, expected for release in 2024. Today, Knopfler acknowledges that, although a superlative piece of craftsmanship, the guitar was a little big for him: '[Sobell] brought that guitar for me to play, that he’d already made, and it's fantastic. The only thing about it was, it was just a shade too big for me. But you’re talking micro measurements. I still played it at home loads. It’s still fantastic.'

STEFAN SOBELL
Born in 1943, Stefan began making instruments in 1973. As a musician himself, his driving search was for the perfect quality of tone. His approach to design and building, his readiness to question accepted ideas and his attention to detail give his guitars a unique look and sound. He became known as the guitarist’s guitar maker, doing no advertising or promotion and relying entirely on word of mouth to make his reputation. Stefan is based in a tiny Northumberland village and makes five or six instruments a year, still innovating in his quest for perfection.