TWO GUITAR AMPLIFIERS, 100 W SUPER LEAD OVERDRIVE

Presumably acquired in early 1988, the two Soldano amplifiers were first used for live shows when Mark Knopfler toured with Eric Clapton in January-February 1988. The concerts were part of Clapton’s 25th anniversary tour and billed as Eric Clapton And His Band Plus Special Guests. Explaining how he came to join the tour, Knopfler told Guitarist magazine in 1992: 'He just asked me to do it, and I felt like playing live again to keep my chops up. I hadn’t been out for a long time, so I just did it for the relaxation, really!' While mainly supporting Clapton, Knopfler would usually play one or two Dire Straits songs at each show – ‘Money For Nothing’ and sometimes ‘Solid Rock’. In the same Guitarist interview, Mark divulged his preferred amplifiers: 'I use Soldanos now; they’re very dependable amps.'

Doubling up on the Soldano amplifiers allowed Knopfler and his guitar technician to operate an A/B system in order to speed up the transition between songs when switching guitars and effects. While one amp was being used, the other could simultaneously be prepared with the settings for the next song. With the input of Knopfler’s then guitar tech Ron Eve, Guitar Player magazine broke it down for the fans in June 1992: 'Knopfler's concert rig is unusual. A Sony wireless receiver feeds his guitar signal into a pair of Soldano 100-watt heads, which in turn power two 4x12 Marshall cabs loaded with Electro-Voice speakers. But here’s the twist: The Soldanos have been modified by U.K. rack guru Pete Cornish to electronically segregate the preamps from the power amp sections. Knopfler changes instruments and preamp settings for every song, and Eve switches preamps as he passes a new guitar. The rationale is simple: with two preamps, Eve can dial in the right sound for the next song in advance without disturbing Knopfler’s current settings. When it comes time to swap instruments, the alternate Soldano is ready to rock. The post-preamp mono signal goes to an effects rack… [and] the emerging stereo signal goes to the Soldano power sections – one amp per side.'

The same rig was used on Dire Straits’ 1992 On Every Street Tour. Eve used a chart to track the A/B changeovers for each set list, together with the different amp and effects set ups for each song (see image). One can only imagine the chaos that would ensue whenever the band decided to change the set list at the last moment! After Dire Straits was officially dissolved following the gruelling 1992 tour, Knopfler set out to update his amp and effects rack ahead of his first solo tour in 1996. According to Eve, 'Mark decided to use a cut-down version of the set-up from the last Dire Straits tour. He wanted to use the two Soldano 100 Lead heads but without the Marshall/EV speaker cabinets and Pete Cornish effects rack. He was keen to try using 2 x 12 cabinets, again with EV speakers and a simple FX set-up comprising "some expensive delay and reverb..." and a footswitch.' Eve, or his successor Glenn Saggers, would continue to set up A/B tone settings for each song on the Soldanos to accommodate fast segues between songs. The A/B Soldano system was still in use on Knopfler’s 2001 Sailing To Philadelphia Tour, as seen in backstage photographs shared in keyboardist Guy Fletcher’s online tour diaries, which he began on this tour. For smaller one-off performances such as television appearances, the technicians would utilise just one Soldano amp and cabinet, as clearly seen when Knopfler performed the song ‘What It Is’ on British talk show Parkinson on 22 September 2000. Saggers’ records show that the Soldanos were used for a series of four charity concerts that reunited Dire Straits under the banner ‘Mark Knopfler and Friends’, including three nights in aid of three charities including Teenage Cancer Trust, at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London from 23-25 July 2002, and a concert in aid of the Countryside Education Trust at Beaulieu in Hampshire on 28 July 2002.

In The Official Mark Knopfler Guitar Styles: Volume I, which was published in 1993, Eve revealed that the 1991 Dire Straits album On Every Street was almost entirely recorded using the Soldanos, with only a couple of exceptions such as the song ‘Fade To Black’, where Knopfler played his Gibson Super 400 through a Fender Vibrolux. 'Because I'm playing with my fingers, I need good amplification,' Knopfler told Guitar Player in June 1992. 'The best amplifiers are picks… But I could never keep picks anyway, so I just play the way I do and dial up the right sound on the Soldano amp.' When preparing for recording sessions, Eve noted: 'I always take in the Soldanos as well as a range of things like old Fender amps.'

Photographs from Guy Fletcher’s 2002 online diaries show that the “A” Soldano amplifier was in use at that time in Knopfler’s home studio at his London mews house, where various album recordings have taken place over the years, including parts of Golden Heart and Sailing To Philadelphia, as well as the entirety of the 1990 Notting Hillbillies album. Then recording for Knopfler’s 2002 solo album The Ragpicker’s Dream, Fletcher explained that the ‘home studio’ was lined with 12-inch-thick foam to surround the amplifier, noting that 'a 59 Les Paul [see lot 42] through a Soldano amplifier and a Marshall 4x12 cabinet is LOUD!' Mark was still using the dependable Soldanos in 2004, telling Willie G. Moseley of Vintage Guitar magazine: 'I kept moving up until I ended up with Soldano, and now I use a combination of those and vintage stuff… although Soldano is more or less “vintage” by now [laughs].'