Sultans of Swing
Encyclopedia
"Sultans of Swing" was the first single release of the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 rock band Dire Straits
Dire Straits
Dire Straits were a British rock band active from 1977 to 1995, composed of Mark Knopfler , his younger brother David Knopfler , John Illsley , and Pick Withers .Dire Straits' sound drew from a variety of musical influences, including jazz, folk, blues, and came closest...

. First released in 1978, its 1979 re-release caused it to become a hit in both the UK and USA.

The song was first recorded as a demo at Pathway Studios
Pathway Studios
Pathway Studios was a North London studio in Islington run by producer Mike Finesilver for many years. Among the well-known artists who made their early recordings at Pathway Studios are Madness, Elvis Costello, The Police, Squeeze, Haircut One Hundred and John Foxx...

, North London, in July 1977, and quickly acquired a following after it was put on rotation at Radio London
Radio London
Radio London may refer to one of the following radio stations:*A popular name for the BBC World Service in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II*The station now known as BBC London 94.9...

. Its popularity soon reached record executives and Dire Straits were offered a contract with Phonogram Records
Phonogram Records
Phonogram Records was started in 1962 as a joint venture between Philips Records and Deutsche Grammophon. In 1972, Phonogram was merged with Polydor Records into PolyGram....

. The song was then re-recorded in early 1978 at Basing Street Studios
Basing Street Studios
SARM Studios is a recording studio located in Notting Hill, London. The studios were established by Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records, and were originally known as Basing Street Studios...

 for the band's debut album Dire Straits
Dire Straits (album)
Dire Straits is the self-titled debut album by British rock band Dire Straits, released in October 1978 by Phonogram Records.-History:...

. The record company wanted a less-polished rock sound for the radio, so an alternative version was recorded at Pathway Studios in April 1978 and released as the single in some countries including the United Kingdom and Germany.

The song was written by Mark Knopfler
Mark Knopfler
Mark Freuder Knopfler, OBE is a Scottish-born British guitarist, singer, songwriter, record producer and film score composer. He is best known as the lead guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter for the British rock band Dire Straits, which he co-founded in 1977...

 whilst in a bar in South London. The inspiration came from a jazz band playing in the corner of an otherwise deserted pub.

Chart success

The song was originally released in May 1978 but did not chart. Following re-issue in January 1979, the song entered the American music pop chart. Unusually, the success of this single release came more than six months after the relatively unheralded release of the band's debut album in October 1978. BBC Radio was initially unwilling to play the song due to its high lyrical content but after it became a U.S. hit, their line softened. The song reached the top 10 in both the UK and the USA, reaching number 8 on the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

 and number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 and helped drive sales of the album, which also became a hit.

It was re-issued again as a single in November 1988, a month after it appeared on the band's greatest hits album Money for Nothing
Money for Nothing (album)
Money for Nothing is a greatest hits album by Dire Straits released in 1988. It features highlights from the band's first five albums. The vinyl edition omits "Telegraph Road" and has a different running order, with "Tunnel of Love" placed between "Money for Nothing", the title track, and "Brothers...

. It was also included on Sultans of Swing: The Very Best of Dire Straits and The Best of Dire Straits & Mark Knopfler: Private Investigations
The Best of Dire Straits & Mark Knopfler: Private Investigations
The Best of Dire Straits & Mark Knopfler: Private Investigations is a 2005 best of album. Named after their 1982 hit single, it consists of material by Dire Straits, with songs selected from the majority of the group's six studio albums from 1978 up to the group's dissolution in 1995...

.

Critical acclaim

The album version of the song featured a critically acclaimed extended guitar solo
Guitar solo
In popular music, a guitar solo is a melodic passage, section, or entire piece of music written for an electric guitar or an acoustic guitar. Guitar solos, which often contain varying degrees of improvisation, are used in many styles of popular music such as blues, jazz, rock and metal styles such...

, reaching #22 on Guitar Worlds list of the greatest guitar solos and #32 on Rolling Stone Magazine's list of greatest guitar songs. Mark Knopfler improvised and expanded that solo during live performances. The coda
Coda (music)
Coda is a term used in music in a number of different senses, primarily to designate a passage that brings a piece to an end. Technically, it is an expanded cadence...

 of the live recording on the 1984 album Alchemy
Alchemy: Dire Straits Live
Side twoSide threeSide four-CD release:"Love over Gold", which had been released as a separate single in 1984, was added into the track list for the CD release, and the fade outs between sides 1 and 2 and sides 3 and 4 have been removed...

 features one of Knopfler's most notable guitar improvisations. Another memorable live version of the song came as an 11-minute performance at the 1988 Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute
Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute
The Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute was a popular-music concert staged on June 11, 1988 at Wembley Stadium, London and broadcast to 67 countries and an audience of 600 million. It was also referred to as Freedomfest, Free Nelson Mandela Concert and Mandela Day...

 concert in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 when Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...

 teamed up with the band to play the song.

The master track of the song is featured in the video game Guitar Hero 5
Guitar Hero 5
Guitar Hero 5 is a music video game and the fifth main entry in the Guitar Hero series. The game was developed by Neversoft and published by RedOctane and Activision, and released internationally in September 2009 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, 3 and Wii consoles...

, as a playable song.
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