“Playing four notes to the bar with your thumb... That changed everything for me, because that’s what I wanted to be able to do”: How Mark Knopfler grew up wanting to be Jimi Hendrix until he ditched the pick and went fingerstyle

Mark Knopfler of Dire Straights performs onstage in 1985 with his red Fender Stratocaster. He wears a dark suit and a burgundy shirt with an open collar.

Few players have done more for fingerstyle electric guitar than Mark Knopfler. The Dire Straits guitarist has inspired generations of players to ditch the guitar pick – and it was only when did just that when he found his signature sound.

And what a sound. Even casual observers need only a bar of music to identify Knopfler’s playing. But Knopfler didn’t start out this way. Back in the day – i.e. when he was a teenager growing up in the northeast of England – he used a pick.