When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. This week we're looking at a guitar riff that occurs a few times in Dire Straits' 1978 debut ...

Mark Knopfler recalled the experience of watching an “average” band play a low-key show in an empty London pub, and how their name, the Sultans of Swing, helped inspire the Dire Straits hit song about ...

Released as the first single from Dire Straits‘ eponymous 1978 debut, “Sultans of Swing” hit No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and has remained a staple song within the British rockers’ classic catalog.

‘Sultans of Swing’ was both the first single from Dire Straits’ debut album and a revealing first-person account of the average working band’s hardscrabble, often thankless existence playing British ...