Music

'You've got to be semi-obsessed': Mark Knopfler is still as dedicated as ever

XPN | By Raina Douris,

Published May 6, 2024 at 8:06 AM EDT

For Mark Knopfler, music has been a lifelong passion, and it's been a well-rewarded one. The numerous accolades he's received would take us too long to list, but among them are several Grammy Awards, a handful of honorary doctorate degrees, and a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with his band Dire Straits.

But, as you'll hear in today's session, you may get the sense that he'd be just as happy making music forever even without all that recognition. Knopfler simply loves doing it. He needs to. His latest album is his tenth solo outing, titled One Deep River. We'll talk about the album, the way Knopfler works in his studio, and the drive it takes to make it as a musician.

He also looks back on Dire Straits, time spent in the Nashville in the 80s, and remembers what it was like when he first worked with Bob Dylan.

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod. The web story was created by Miguel Perez. Our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.

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Music #MusicDiscovery New Music

Raina Douris

Raina Douris, an award-winning radio personality from Toronto, Ontario, comes to World Cafe from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), where she was host and writer for the daily live, national morning program Mornings on CBC Music. She was also involved with Canada's highest music honors: hosting the Polaris Music Prize Gala from 2017 to 2019, as well as serving on the jury for both that award and the Juno Awards. Douris has also served as guest host and interviewer for various CBC Music and CBC Radio programs, and red carpet host and interviewer for the Juno Awards and Canadian Country Music Association Awards, as well as a panelist for such renowned CBC programs as Metro Morning, q and CBC News.

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Kimberly Junod

World Cafe senior producer Kimberly Junod has been a part of the World Cafe team since 2001, when she started as the show's first line producer. In 2011 Kimberly launched (and continues to helm) World Cafe's Sense of Place series that includes social media, broadcast and video elements to take listeners across the U.S. and abroad with an intimate look at local music scenes. She was thrilled to be part of the team that received the 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award for excellence in music programming. In the time she has spent at World Cafe, Kimberly has produced and edited thousands of interviews and recorded several hundred bands for the program, as well as supervised the show's production staff. She has also taught sound to young women (at Girl's Rock Philly) and adults (as an "Ask an Engineer" at WYNC's Werk It! Women's Podcast Festival).

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